Modernization of the Computer
...ns of rotating shafts and gears. These machines calculated equations too difficult for people to do. Mechanical and, later, electrical analog computers were used during both world wars plotting courses of torpedoes in submarines and as bomb-sight controllers in aircraft. One computer was even used to predict when the Mississippi River Basin would flood. (CD-ROM) In the 1940s, Howard Aiken, a Harvard University mathematician, created what has been considered as the first digital computer. The instructions for solving a problem were fed into the machine on a roll of punched paper tape, instead of being stored in the computer. The first computer with internal storage capability was built in 1945, however, and it was based on the ideas of the mathematician John von Neumann. The instructions were stored within a so-called memory, freeing the computer from the speed limitations of the paper tape reader during execution and permitting problems to be solved without rewiring the computer. (CD-ROM) The American engineer, John Presper Ecker Jr. and the American physicist John William Mauchly constructed the first general-purpose all-electronic computer in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. It was called ENIAC, which is an acronym for electronic numerical integrator and computer. The device contained 18,000 vacuum tubes and could process several hundred calculations per minute. One major drawback was that its program was hard-wired into the processor and had to be manually altered. (CD-ROM) The use of the transistor in computers made for smaller, faster, and more versatile machines that weren't possible with vacuum-tube machines, and because transistors use much less power and have a much longer life and this was responsible for second-generation computers. Components were made smaller, so were intercomponent spacings, and the system became much less expensive to build. (CD-ROM) The integrated circuit or IC, was invented in the 1960s and made it possible for many transistors to be fabricated on one silicon chip, with all of the wires permanently set in place. The making of the IC created a drop in price, size, and failure rate. The microprocessor was made possible in the mid-1970s when the large scale integrated (LSI) circuit and, later, the very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuit were made with many thousands of interconnected transistors etched into a single silicon chip. These large `chips are the brain of the computer. They run all the math and logic processes in the computer and compute all the answers and tell your operating system to show us the answers. They would be mounted on what is called a Printed Circuit Board, or PCB. A flat board made of nonconducting material, such as plastic or fiberglass, on which chips and other electronic components are mounted. The components on a printed circuit board are connected electrically by preset conductive metal pathways that are plated on the surface of the board. The metal leads protruding from the electronic components are soldered to the conductive metal pathways to form a connection. (CD-ROM) The chips that are in production today contain millions of transistors in them. The first chip, made in 1971, the 4004 had 2000 transistors in it. The 8008, made in 1972, had 3,500. In 1974 the 8080 had 6,000 transistors and the 8088 had 29,000 in 1980. In 1982 the 80286 had 134,000 transistors, and the 386DX was made in 1985 and it consisted of 275,000. When INTEL made the 486 in 1991 it was made up of 1,185,000 transistors! The Pentium had 3,100,000 when it was made in 1993, and the latest model, the Pentium Pro has 5,500,000 transistors when it was finished just last year. Just a few months ago the Pentium II emerged, pushing MHz up above the 300 mark with approximately 7.5 million transistors. It has been speculated that every 18-24 months, chip density doubles. The next chip, which is to be released in the next year possibly is planned to have over 10 million transistors or a 5000-fold increase in complexity since the 4004 way back in 1971. The IC business alone has had some tremendous breakthroughs by itself and it is just a small part of the computer (Moore 2-7). The dependence of businesses on has risen to extremely vulnerable levels. Computers are our major link to the Internet, a vast network of computers all over the world. Computers allow us to advertise our businesses over the Internet and then millions upon billions of people could possibly see our ad. It also allows us to communicate ...