History of Computers :: Technology Computers Essays

History of Computers When you think about the origins of the electronic digital computer, what scientists’ names come to mind? Many historians give the credit to the American scientists J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchy. They built their Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) during World War II. These two scientists founded the first private computer systems company. Although most people recognize Eckert and Mauchy as the persons accountable for the computer industry, historians are beginning to recognize a more unfamiliar history of the computer, its roots in the military establishment. (Meyers) The birth of the abacus was the beginning of computer history. The abacus is a wooden rack that holds two horizontal wires with beads strung on them. Moving the beads on the abacus can solve regular arithmetic problems. Thomas of Colmar developed the desktop calculator. While great advances were made in mathematical physics between 1850 and 1900, mechanical engineering and science began to make important advances in several areas by the time WWI broke out in 1939. The Navy was particularly interested in the development of advanced technology beginning in World War I. â€Å"Important advances in naval warfare, including the use of mechanical directors and computers for fire control, the use of radio for communication across great distances, and the development of the attack submarine posed new technical problems for strategists.† (Flamm) A consulting board was set up in order to screen the proposals of outside inventors. The board also set up a laboratory to work on the problems of antisubmarine warfare, and eventually the Naval Research Laboratory was then established in 1923. The development of RADAR, radio communications, and the interception of encrypted enemy communications traffic were all supported by the Navy’s postwar research efforts. â€Å"Because signals transmitted by radio could be intercepted much more easily than communications over land lines, cryptanalysis became an economic means of acquiring in telligence about the intentions of foreign, especially naval, military forces.† (Flamm) During the 1930s, the Navy supported substantial work on servomechanisms at MIT. The analog computers were developed after Navy officers enrolled as graduate students in MIT’s Servomechanism Laboratory.