evolution of computers

Computers are our world’s gateway and information superhighway, but they weren’t always so complex, integrated, and involved in our lives. The computer has been developing slowly for centuries and has taken the skills of many inventors. In the quest to formalize a counting mechanism, the concept of positional notation was introduced. Around the year 3000 a. C. the Chinese abacus was developed. The abacus was the only computing device in history for more than four thousand years. In the 1600s, German scientist Wilhelm Schikard invented a device that used eleven complete and six incomplete gear wheels that had the ability to add, multiply, and divide.

It was not for another three hundred years that the world’s first programmable computer was built. The Z1, created by Konrad Zuse in the late 1930s, had all the basics of our modern computers, such as the use of the binary system and the separation of storage and control. Unlike the devices we use today, the Z1 weighed just over two thousand pounds. Like the Z1, the ENIAC was very large; it was the size of two semi-trailers and weighed more than thirty tons. The ENIAC was built in the US in the mid-1940s by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert and was the first electronic computer.

Over the next several decades, the development of computing devices transformed from a machine that took up the entire space of a room to a device as portable as a cell phone. The Apple and IBM companies built the first recognizable computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As the years have passed, the size and speed of personal computers have changed for the better.

The Internet as we know it has only been around for the last twenty years, but we depend on it like the air we breathe. The World-Wide Web (WWW) was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 and since then has continually added websites and services that were previously unavailable to a person from his home. There are a number of things available to you on the Net, you can find anything from simple word definitions to integrated personal or corporate training solutions.

One of the items that, as the latest generation, we can say is essential for our daily lives is a laptop. Due to its small size and portable functionality, people can do almost anything from various locations. This feature motivates companies to offer enterprise learning solutions to their employees. With the flexibility of such devices, learning on and off the job is as simple as pressing the power button.