Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are names synonymous with computers. At least they use modern computers, but they were only relying on an idea that appeared in the 1800s and continued to grow over time. What was once huge machines that took all kinds of parts and did only rudimentary work (to our standards), we now hold them in our hands and of course, the technology is only progressing.
So we go back to an Englishman named Charles Babbage who, for the most part, was born too early for his ideas. He is at the origin of the concept of a programmable computer and is known to be the father of technology. He invented the first mechanical computer in 1833 which was an engine of analysis. The data and program entries had to be provided to the machine by means of punch cards. The output included a printer, a plotter and a bell. She could punch numbers on cards that could be read later. His idea even had an arithmetic and logical unit, a control flow and an integrated memory, which would have been, if it had been realized, the very first general purpose design.
All the parts of Babbage’s machine had to be hand-made and, unfortunately, his idea never materialized because the government cut back its subsidies and is short of money. However, his son, Henry Babbage, made a simplified version of his father’s idea in 1888 and managed to show that it worked in 1906.
All these ideas have given way to analog computers, which have used direct models, mechanical or electrical, of a problem as a basis for calculation. But, they were not programmable, they were not precise and they were not very versatile. Something had to change.
The first programmable electronic computer was ENIAC, fast and flexible, completed in 1946. The program was designed by the states of its connecting cables and switches. Someone would write a program and then mechanically introduce it into the machine with a manual reset of the patch cables and wires. This is far from what we know today in computers, which occupies 1,800 square feet and weighs 50 tons. Imagine carrying this in your pocket!
Technology continues to grow and today we can do almost anything from a very small device that we carry with us. Unbelievable. What is the next? Stay tuned!