The Evolution of Computers

    Computers or better known as devices that helped aid computation have been used for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one correspondence. One-to-one correspondence meaning a set paired with another set where each element in one of the sets is paired with exactly one element from the other set. These computers came to be known as counting devices. These devices were really only used to help you count and keep records and not much more. The earliest counting device dated back to the Upper Palaeolithic or the Old Stone Age.

     This device was called the Tally Stick or simply the Tally. The Tally Stick was used to keep track of numbers and other simple tasks. The device was used by people such as Pliny the Elder and Marco Polo. The next device was the Abacus, a better well-known device. It was used for simple arithmetic tasks and it was used as early as 2700-2300 BC.

    The first mechanical computers were created by Charles Babbage in the mid-19th century. He became known as the father of computing because of his invention of the Analytical Engine in 1837 among other things. The Analytical Engine contained an ALU or arithmetic log unit, basic flow control, and integrated memory. It became known as the first general-purpose computer concept. It was only known as a concept because Babbash never actually finished it but he did work on it until his death in 1871.

     One of the first electronical computers was built by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania between 1943-1945. This machine was called the Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer or ENIAC for short. It was different than the Analytical machine mostly because it was electronical instead of mechanical. The ENIAC was the first machine to use more than 2,000 vacuum tubes, using about 18,000 vacuum tubes. Using that much machinery required about 1,800 square feet of floor space and weighed almost 50 tons.

 
    Then there was one of the first devices marketed as a Personal Computer called the Programma 101 in 1965. It was a plastic build with a built-in numpad. It didn't have a screen, but instead, it had a roll of receipt paper that would get the output print on it. It was sometimes called a printing programable calculator. The Programma 101 retailed for $3,200 US dollars equivalent to $26,000 US dollars in 2019. Finally, the first computer to resemble modern computers, the Alto Personal Computer. The Alto was the first computer to have a graphical user interface or GUI for short not the Apple Lisa like most people think. Before GUIs were a thing on computers, computer operating systems were just one big command prompt or terminal. This meant that you had to know lines of code to be able to search through your computer and to be able to open your apps. The GUI added menus and icons and a home screen to the computer. You could now have a front end that was more user-friendly and a back end that did most of the code for you. In modern times we think of computers as a device with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. In reality, any device with a CPU, storage, RAM, a motherboard, etc. can be considered a computer.