The first milestone in the
History of Computer Science was the invention of the abacus about 2000 years
ago. Moving the beads accomplished several simple mathematical operations.
Blaise Pascal is usually credited with building the first digital calculator in
1642. It performed addition operations to help his father who was a tax
collector. The world’s first commercially successful calculator that could add,
subtract, divide and multiply was built by Charles Xavier Thomas, a century
later. Around the same time, Charles Babbage proposed the first general
mechanical computer called the Analytical engine. It contained Arithmetic
Logical Unit (ALU), basic flow control and an integrated memory. Thus began the
evolution of computer science. Computers those days looked very different from
those that we have today. Let’s take a look at one of them.
In 1945, University Pennsylvania
came up with the first electronic computer called Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). Can you imagine a computer more than 1000
square-feet? Yes, ENIAC was that big with several fans to prevent overheating
of the device. Programmers made use of punch cards or tape to feed program
instructions. Though ENIAC could compute 5000 operations in seconds, yet it failed
frequently because it consumed 150KW of power, leading to a rumour that lights
dimmed in Philadelphia whenever it was switched on. It performed 385
multiplications per second, or forty division operations per second or three
square root operations per second.
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| ENIAC |
Were engineers crazy to construct
such huge computers? In fact, they were extremely smart; it was their thoughts
and ideas that shaped computer science as we know today. Gradual progressions
in hardware and software then were accelerated not just due to the demand but
due to inane human curiosity. Being a computer scientist myself, and a part of
this evolution I can’t wait to contribute and advance this science even
further!
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