Today, the modern life presents a number of aspects that the human being does not stop to take a second thought. These aspects have become so integrated in the human systems that minutes do not pass before we turn to them. Eating, sleeping, walking are natural, far from using a car, writing by use of a pen, reading a newspaper as well as cooking food.
The interests of these aspects are created by the mentioning of such in the line above and the reader takes a deep thought about them now under this dimension. The human being from an early age represented by the early man lived in a life that in every day sought to come up with solutions for daily challenges.
`Today, computers, calculators and special micro chip processors are situated within reach from a human hand. It may be from the phone, pocket calculator, laptop, desktop, ipad, iphone, sub-meters, vending machines plus more. This paper will attempt to explain how computers have developed from that initial quest of counting to the modern array of perplexing digital world supercomputers.
Before civilization hits the oldest villages of human society, the idea of computing was in the most basic form represented by bones, rocks, clay objects and simple numbering systems, the Babylonians, the Greek, the Arabs, Semites, Indians, Chinese, Mayans used complicated systems of abacus, alphabetic systems, numeric systems, wax and rods for accounting purposes by 100BCE.
These years were characterized by primitive knowledge but that served the owners right and correctly according to their system of life. By 0 CE the Romans had invented a pocket abacus which developed from wax and rods ((Helander, Landauer & Prahbu, 1997).
However, its limitations to speed, complexity, and quantity probably led to its obsoleteness in time as the human race sought to fulfill these wants for accurate, faster and speedy accounting in trade and commerce. Numbers came into existence in India following the nine-digit system Brahmi notation, from India.
These Indians moved from column importance to decimals and full development of the usage of zero position in 500 A.D and thus preparing the way for computers. These little pieces of inventions from different parts of the world in a timeline meant to appreciate the origin an importance of computers could be detailed largely as Swedin and Ferro do in their book (2007).
However, intentions, time and space confine this work to recent timeline of the development of the computer and towards its appreciation in the modern world. The invention of printing, the slide ruler, the mechanical calculator, analog devices as well as algorisms between 0 CE and 1700s all culminated to the development of the computer by the start of the 1800s.
The different forms of computers that started were better than their counterparts back in the years but were by far the slowest and obsolete in comparison to modern day prowess of a computer. The invention of the modern computer started early in form of calculators, printing machines and punch cards. These inventions later culminated to the first computer in 1938 built by Konrad Zuse (Swedin & Ferro, 2007).
The development of the computer spelt success to the army scientists, businesses and normal people who depended on daily calculations, word processing and graphic designs to make a living. In as a result therefore the computer was a big relief noting how easy it made work as well as advancing and supporting human technology to the moon by 1969. On the other hand, there were a number of problems that hindered full success. There was problem of too much use of vacuum tubes which consumed large amounts of power as well as floor space.
These were costly and therefore new ways were being devised to counter these problems. The results were brought in by Shockley, Bardeen & Brattain and Jack St. Clair Kilby in 1947 and 1958 respectively. The former trio invented the transistor which was a major solution to the whole of electronics industry while the later created integrated circuits hence eliminating the problem of wielding transistors which had chances of wrong wiring and short circuiting.
These new inventions lead to minimized use of power as well as easier handling for more future work. As a result, therefore, issues in heating speed and need for more accuracy led to the development of micro processors which led to production of microcomputers (Hoyle, 2006).
This marked another age of increased efficiency in operations and usability leading to the development of wide range computers described in terms of purpose. The introduction of Personal computers, scientific computers, research computers, military computers as well as others could not have been possible without the ‘chip’ technology.
By 1980s, computers had evolved by far much processing speed and power as compared to ENIAC the first computer. The revolution to integrated circuits, graphics, the use of a mouse and home based computers could only describe the speed of evolution in computer usage and technology. By far accounting speed, accuracy and efficiency had increased and therefore the problems of quantities and time taken had been solved.
The PC explosion age started with the introduction of Altair 880 in the year 1971 ((Helander, Landauer & Prahbu, 1997). Different companies that had formed and were responsible for unique and varied types of computers engaged in a race to clinch the home market.
William Gates, Paul Allen and Micro Instrumentation and Telementry Systems (MITS) company had already curved their market share and therefore by early 1980s, a whole range of computers meant for home purposes were found in the market. This changed the approach in computers and the technology which was initially restricted to universities, the government and research such as the usage of word processing programs, graphic and accounting soft wares (Ceruzzi, 2011).
It prepared the human race for modern type of computers. Using application technology, BASIC programming language, RAM, color graphics, the transistor, audio cassettes and later magnetic drums, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Apple Company brought home the technology that became the standards of usage in the business and home environment.
From an early state, the problem of the computer was to package everything in the same housing and, therefore, by this far, the technology had become successful and had far much changed (Ceruzzi, 2011).
The way humans communicated through computers in 1969 was by the use of ARPAnet. ARPAnet linked computers in the first original way of the modern internet although it was slow. Its vulnerability to attacks from other online persons also made it an unsuitable means of linking computers.
As a result, therefore, the development of (LAN) Local Area Network took over as it possessed speed and a degree of security could be guaranteed to those using the service. Later, the Web was developed at CERN in Switzerland and it took new forms and dimensions towards communicating informational text and graphics across the internet. It uses the HTML language that helped for the first time transfer of movies, pictures, sounds graphs as well as others.
The Web in the computer technology changes has had the most impact in the computer industry. In a record time, the Web attracted a huge number of users in such of exchange and in research of also very high amounts of information (Betz, 2011).
In modernity, the internet has revolutionalised the way human beings used the computer and advanced the initial need for accounting and model analysis tool. In the last few years, the computer technology has changed communication very seriously by integration into cell phones.
This has led to greater world connectivity, sharing living experiences far away miles in geographical distance estimates. The invention of Facebook, Twitter and others is a conscious approach to the timeline in technology and the need to change what is perceivable and realistic (Helander, Landauer & Prahbu, 1997).
As such, communication through emails has changed to buzz, chat and shared experiences in business and social life. The development of android phones and mini computers has even further changed the concept of visiting a café to spontaneous response and communication through the smart phones. These changes underline the importance of this paper and serve to appreciate the far human computer technology has come from an effort to rise above the challenges of the day.
References
Betz, F. (2011). Managing Technological Innovation: Competitive Advantage from Change. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Ceruzzi, P. E. (2011). A history of modern computing. New Baskerville, MIT.
Helander, M. G., Landauer, T. K., & Prahbu, P. V. (1997). Handbook of Human- Computer Interaction. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Hoyle, M. A. (2006). Computers: From the Past to the Present. Web.
Swedin, E. G., & Ferro, L. D. (2007). Computers: The life Story of a Technology. Marlyland, Baltimore: JHU Press.