Computer History Difference Engine How did one of the early

Computer History: Difference Engine. How did one of the early computers work?

Solution

Computer:

A computer is a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitarary set of arithmetic,(or) logical operations automatically.

History of computer:

The computer as we know it today had its begining with a 19th century english mathemetic professor name charles babbage.

->computers can be classified into three generations

First generation(1937-1946):In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was buily by dr.john v. atanasoff and cifford berry.it was called a the atanasoff berry computer.

->in 1943 an electronic computer name the colossus was buily for the military.

->In 1946 the first general purpose digital computer,the electronic numerical integrator and computer was built.

->computer of this generation could only perform single task,and they had no operating system.

Second generation(1947-1962):

This generation computer used transistor instead of vaccumtubes.which were more reliable.

->In 1951 the first computer for commercial use was introduced to the public,the universal automatic computer.

->This computer had memory and operating system.

->And also had stirage media such as tape and disk and printers for output.

Third generation(1962-present):

The invention of integrated circuit brought us the third generation of computers.

->This invention computer became samaller and more powerfull and more reliable.

Difference engine:

A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator.designed to tabulate polynomial functions.

->Most mathemetical functions commonly used by engineers,scientists and navigators including logorthmic tables of numbers.

->difference engine can compute many useful tables of numbers.

Early computers work?:

More sophisticated electronic machines did specialized analog calculation in the early 20 th century.

->The first digital electronic calculating machine were developed during world war II.

->The speed,power,and versatility of computers has increaed continuously and dramatically since then.

->Conventionally, amodern computer consists of at least one processing element.

->The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations and a sequencing and control unit can change the order to stored information.

->peripheral devices allow.information to be retrieved from an external source and they enable the result of operations to be saved and retrieved.