Computers: the Dawn of a Revolution
Overview
By the end of the twentieth century, computers could be found in devices from wristwatches to automobiles, from medical equipment to children's toys. But while scientists and philosophers had dreamed of the possibility of automating calculation nearly one hundred years earlier, very little progress was made toward modern computers before 1940. As scientists and engineers worked to face the challenges of World War II—including cracking codes and calculating the physics equations to produce atomic weapons—they finally made computers a reality. In a few short years, the theoretical vision of computing was brought together with existing technologies such as office machines and vacuum tubes to make the first generation of electronic computers.
Background
Mechanical calculating machines had their origins in the mid-nineteenth century with the work of Charles Babbage (1792-1871), whose "Analytical Engine" was intended to use gears and punched cards to perform arithmetical operations. Babbage's design anticipated many of the concepts central to modern computers, such as programming and data storage. Interestingly, a fragment of Babbage's machine survived to the 1940s, when it was discovered in an attic at Harvard and helped inspire the computer innovator Howard Aiken (1900-1973). Punched cards were also used to collect and store data beginning with the 1890 census.
