History of The Computer and The InternetMorgan3rd Period

The “first” computer

The history of the modern computer begins with two separate technologiesautomated calculation and programmability—but no single device can be identified as the earliest computer, partly because of the inconsistent application of that term. Examples of early mechanical calculating devices include the abacus, the slide rule, the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism which dates from about 150-100BC.

The first programmable computer

• The Z1 originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer.

• The Z1 had 64-word memory (each word contained 22 bits) and a clock speed of 1 Hz. To program the Z1 required that the user insert punch tape into a punch tape reader and all output was also generated through punch tape.

The first digital computer

• Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to be developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College. On October 19 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the Eniac patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer.

• The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 sq ft. and used 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC was the first computer many still consider the ENIAC to be the first digital computer because the ABC was never fully functional.

The first personal computer• The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer was designed in the port holed attic of Watson

Lab at Columbia University by John Lentz between 1948 and 1954 as the Personal Automatic Computer (PAC) and announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957. The IBM 610 was the first personal computer, in the sense that it was the first computer intended for use by one person (e.g. in an office) and controlled from a keyboard². The large cabinet contains a magnetic drum, the arithmetic control circuitry, a control panel, and separate paper-tape readers and punches for program and data (according to one former user, Russ Jensen, "The machine was programmed by a punched paper tape which duplicated itself in order to perform extra passes through the code". The IBM electric typewriter printed the output at 18 characters per second; the other device was the operator's keyboard for control and data entry, which incorporated a small cathode ray tube (two inches, 32×10 pixels) that could display the contents of any register. A "register" is any of 84 drum locations (31 digits plus sign). The control panel provides additional programming control (e.g. for creating subroutines, typically for trigonometric or other mathematical functions). Price: $55,000.00 (or rental at $1150/month, $460 academic). 180 units were produced.

The first portable computer

• The computer considered by most historians to be the first true portable computer was the Osborne 1. Adam Osborne, an ex-book publisher founded Osborne Computer and produced the Osborne 1 in 1981, a portable computer that weighed 24 pounds and cost $1795. The Osborne 1 came with a five-inch screen, modem port, two 5 1/4 floppy drives, a large collection of bundled software programs, and a battery pack. The short-lived computer company was never successful.

The first Apple computer• The Apple I, also known as the Apple-1, was an early

personal computer. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple's first product, demonstrated in April 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

• Released on April Fools for $666.66 and about 200 were produced.

• The Apple I was the first single circuit board computer. It came with a video interface, 8k of RAM and a keyboard. The system incorporated some economical components, including the 6502 processor (only $25 dollars - designed by Rockwell and produced by MOS Technologies) and dynamic RAM.

Major Computer Companies

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TOSHIBSHP

ACER

What is the Internet?

The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected networks and

computers

The beginning of the Internet

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching, which was to form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over dial-up telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area networking, but also showed that the telephone line's circuit switching was inadequate. Kleinrock's packet switching theory was confirmed. Roberts moved over to DARPA in 1966 and developed his plan for ARPANET. These visionaries and many more left unnamed here are the real founders of the Internet.

Technology and Internet Today

• Apple is the main computer company this year with technology like the new iPod shuffle, nana, and touch, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, iMac, Apple TV, iphone 4, iPod Universal Dock Adapter 3

• Internet is great for communication and three main sources for this generation are facebook, twitter, and myspace. Many teenagers, adults, and celebrities use them.

Sources.• http://itgsonline.com/?p=1250

• http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

• http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/Apple_Computers.htm

• http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

• http://store.apple.com/us?afid=p219%7CGOUS&cid=OAS-US-KWG-SitelinksAppleStore-Main

• http://www.computersciencelab.com/ComputerHistory/HistoryPt3.htm

• http://howyoudoin.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/the-ultraslim-laptops/

• http://www.dimensionsguide.com/how-big-is-the-first-computer/