The Impact of Computers On Our Lives :: Technology Society Computer Essays Papers

The Impact of Computers On Our LivesOnly once in a lifetime will a new invention father about to touch e actually aspect of our lives. Such a wile that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. A machine that has through with(p) solely this and more now exists in nigh every argumentation in the US and one out of every two households (Hall, 156). This fabulous invention is the computer. The electronic computer has been around for over a half-century, yet its ancestors have been around for 2000 days. However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society. From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of peoples lives for the better. The very earliest humans of the in advance(p) day computers ancestor is the abacus. These date concealment to almost 2000 years ago. It is simply a wooden rack dimension parallel wires on which beads are strung. When these beads are trav el along the wire according to programming rules that the user must memorize, all ordinary arithmetic operations can be performed (Soma, 14). The next knowledgeability in computers took place in 1694 when Blaise Pascal invented the first digital work out machine. It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by crook dials. It was intentional to help Pascals father who was a revenue enhancement collector (Soma, 32). In the early 1800s, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage designed an automatic calculation machine. It was steam powered and could store up to honey oil 50-digit numbers. Built in to his machine were operations that included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was programmed by--and stored data on--card game with holes punched in them, appropriately called punchcards. His inventions were failures for the most originate because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of study for such a de vice (Soma, 46). After Babbage, people began to lose hobby in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances in mathematics and natural philosophy that began to rekindle the interest (Osborne, 45). Many of these new advances involved complex calculations and formulas that were very time consuming for human calculation. The first major use for a computer in the US was during the 1890 census. Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, developed a new punched-card system that could automatically read information on cards without human intervention (Gulliver, 82).