The never ending cycle of technology is Information Technology. This has been evolving since the 17th century. In the 17th century, the term computer was referred to as a person performing mathematical calculations, but today a computer is being defined as a device that can be instructed to carry out an arbitrary set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. In the 1800s, the first computing device was invented by an English mechanical engineer namely Charles Babbage. This device was called the difference engine and its purpose was to aid in navigational calculations, unfortunately, finding parts for this machine was a very challenging task because most of the parts had to be hand-made. Eventually, the project dissolved and the British
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This attracted immigrant from all over the world; due to the increase in population, tabulating the US census was a difficult task because the census was tabulated by hand thus increasing the time it takes. This was when Herman Hollerith, an American inventor invented the electromechanical punched card tabulator. This invention by Hollerith marked the beginning of the era of semi-automatic data processing. Hollerith began working for the US census bureau and his device reduce the time required to process the census from 8 years to 6 years. In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company which was renamed in 1905 to The Tabulating Machine Company. To improve his tabulating machine, he invented the first automatic card feed mechanism and the first key …show more content…
The first generation of computers ranged from 1940 – 1956. These computers were mainly made up of vacuum tubes. According to some scholars, the ENIAC was the world’s first all-electronic computer but this theory was disproved by the courts. However, the ENIAC was the first electronic general purpose computer and the first ever computer to be built with vacuum tubes. ENIAC was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania and was used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States. It was made up of 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints. This device was the size of a
This attracted immigrant from all over the world; due to the increase in population, tabulating the US census was a difficult task because the census was tabulated by hand thus increasing the time it takes. This was when Herman Hollerith, an American inventor invented the electromechanical punched card tabulator. This invention by Hollerith marked the beginning of the era of semi-automatic data processing. Hollerith began working for the US census bureau and his device reduce the time required to process the census from 8 years to 6 years. In 1896 Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company which was renamed in 1905 to The Tabulating Machine Company. To improve his tabulating machine, he invented the first automatic card feed mechanism and the first key …show more content…
The first generation of computers ranged from 1940 – 1956. These computers were mainly made up of vacuum tubes. According to some scholars, the ENIAC was the world’s first all-electronic computer but this theory was disproved by the courts. However, the ENIAC was the first electronic general purpose computer and the first ever computer to be built with vacuum tubes. ENIAC was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania and was used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States. It was made up of 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints. This device was the size of a