Hey folks! Last week we talked about early computers (2500 BC and on) and how they helped get things done more quickly and accurately. We also talked about Ada Lovelace and how she’s known as the first computer programmer. (Badass) Since then, we’ve seen unbelievable advancement in technology and we use it so much nowadays that it’s a little frightening. Take a look at your screen time, it might make you want to cut back just a little. But if you’re a coder, like me, you’re going to be spending 8+ hours a day in front of a laptop!
This week, I wanted to talk about electronic computers. The first programmable, electronic computer was the Colossus Mark 1 was designed by Tommy Flowers in 1943. The Colossus was used in WWII to decrypt Nazi communications and was programmed much differently than we program today, by plugging hundreds of wires into plugboards. Just a few years later in 1946, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was designed by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert. It was a general purpose computer that could perform large calculations much faster than any other machine. Very soon after, in 1947, came the transistor designed by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain which are tiny switches that can be triggered by electric signals. They allowed smaller and cheaper computers to be made. Today’s computers use transistors that are smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper and are so fast that they can switch states millions of times per second!
In 1967, the ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit) was invented which does ALL the computation in a computer. And in 1971, the first CPU (Central Processing Unit) was invented which is an electronic circuit that handles instructions to operate the computer. All of this stuff is hardware, but what about software! Software is the instructions, data or programs used to operate a computer. People used to have to write programs in pseudo-code and then translate it into binary machine code. (1’s and 0’s) Sounds like a drag! Thankfully today, more advanced, text-based programming languages are available that help increase our productivity and give our computers instructions more easily.
We can jump further into programming languages and how they work next week. For now I’ll be enjoying the wonderful Ruby language and working on a website. As always, I’d love to make connections on Twitter, you can find me here!
Peace,
Nica
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/alu.htm
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-is-a-cpu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languages