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 bare-assed invention come ab away to touch every grimace of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a especial(a) one, indeed. A machine that has done all this and more now exists in nearly every business in the US and one out of every two households (Hall, 156). This incredible invention is the computer. The electronic computer has been close to for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000 years. However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the Ameri brook society. From the prototypical wooden abacus to the in style(p) high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of peoples lives for the better. The very earliest existence of the modern day computers ancestor is the abacus. These date back to almost 2000 years ago. It is simply a wooden rack holding parallel wires on which beads ar strung. When these beads are moved along t he wire according to computer programing rules that the user must memorize, all ordinary arithmetic operations can be performed (Soma, 14). The next innovation in computers took place in 1694 when Blaise atomic number 91 invented the first digital calculating machine. It could only add number and they had to be entered by turning dials. It was designed to help Pascals father who was a tax 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 1000 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--cards with holes punched in them, appropriately called punchcards. His inventions were failures for the most part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of demand for such a device (Soma, 46). later on Bab bage, people began to lose interest in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900 there were considerable advances in mathematics and physics 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. ii men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, developed a new punched-card system that could automatically get a line information on cards without human intervention (Gulliver, 82).