Jordan Walker and Myles Ware 1 Computers Ms.

Butler November 25, 2013 Computer Chronicles All throughout history, technology has been present. And much to our benefit, it is constantly improving, whether it is a better phone, an enhanced TV, or a more efficient computer. The first computer was really a calculator. This computer, or calculator, was part of the Mechanical Devices era. Blaise Pascal created it in 1642 to make doing taxes easier, and it was named the Pascaline. It had a mechanism to calculate with eight figures, and its ability to carry numbers was a large part of success. Konrad Zuse invented the first freely programmable computer, originally called the Z1 Computer, in 1936. In February of 1944, IBM and Harvard University teamed up to create the Harvard Mark I, which is considered to be the first digital computer. Tom Kilburn and F.C. Williams built the first Stored Program Computer. It was made at Manchester University as a small-scale experiment. Its inventors called it the Baby; it was the very first computer to store a changeable user program in electronic memory and process it at electronic speed. Mainframe computers came afterwards. Used mostly by corporate and governmental organizations, these large processors were originally housed in large metal frames. They have gone from being the size of a room to network configurations of workstations and servers and are often used for e-commerce development and hosting. The first consumer computersthe Scelbi (Scientific, Electric, and Biological), Mark 8 Altair, and IBM 5100came out in 1974-1975. The first advertisement for the Scelbi appeared in the March 1974 issue of QST magazine. On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak introduced the Apple I computer. It had the first single circuit board. Next came the very popular Personal Electronic Transactor (PET), which was made by Commodore around 1976-77. IBM launched its personal computer in 1981. The Osborne I, which was invented by Larry Osborne in 1981, was the first portable microcomputer. The Apple Lisa was announced in 1983. It was the first computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). The Apple MacIntosh, released in 1984, was the first popular GUI computer. Since then, Apple has been very successful. Its popular products include the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, and the iPad. Michael Dell, a college student, began making computers in his dorm room in January of 1984. He dropped out of college and started Dell Computer Corporation. The company is now the leading seller of computer systems in the world. Pencept made the first tablet computer in 1985. Bill Gates and Microsoft introduced a tablet computer in 2000 and a second version in 2002. However, tablets did not become popular until Apple released its iPad in 2010. Now, there are many different kinds of tablets.

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Computers have become more popular over time. In 1955, there were only 250 computers used throughout the world. By 1980, there were one million personal computers (PCs) in the world; that number grew to 30 million by the mid1980s. According Forrester Research, more than one billion PCs were being used around the world by the end of 2008, and the company believes more than two billion PCs will be in use by 2015. Personal computers are now extremely affordable and a part of everyday life for most people. Our reliance on computers can be seen through the heavy use of smart phones, laptops, and tablets, and it will be interesting to see how computers continue to change and evolve in years to come.

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References Bellis, Mary. (2013). The First Hobby and Home Computers: Scelbi, Mark-8, Altair, IBM 5100. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa120198.htm Bellis, Mary. (2013). The History of Computers. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm Bort, Julie. (2013, May 30). Microsoft Invented A Tablet A Decade Before Apple And Totally Blew It. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-visualproof-of-just-how-badly-microsoft-blew-it-with-tablets-2013-5 Computers Sold This Year Worldwide. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.worldometers.info/computers/ History of Apple. (2013, November 15). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc. Kalinowski, Richard. (2013, March 5). Who Invented the First Tablet PC? http://www.ehow.com/facts_5813990_invented-first-tablet-pc_.html The Personal Computer. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/personal_computer.htm SSEM Computer of Frederic Williams and Tom Kilburn. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/SSEM.html Timeline of Computer History. (2006). Retrieved from http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/