History Of The Computer Industry In America

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Term Paper Title	History Of The Computer Industry In America
# of Words	2614
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	10.46

History of the Computer Industry in America

History of the Computer Industry in America

        Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every
aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play
is a special one, indeed.  A machine that has done all this and more now exists
in nearly every business in the U.S. and one out of every two households (Hall,
156).  This incredible invention is the computer.  The electronic computer has
been around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000
years.  However, only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society.
From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the
computer has changed nearly every aspect of peoples lives for the better.
        The earliest existence of the modern day computer ancestor is the abacus.
These date back to almost 2000 years ago.  It is simply a wooden rack holding
parallel wire on which beads are strung.  When these beads are moved along the
wire according to "programming" rules that the user must memorize, all ordinary
arithmetic operations can be performed (Soma, 14).  The next innovation in
computers took place in 1694 when Blaise Pascal invented the first digital
calculating machine.  It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by
turning dials.  It was designed to help Pascal's father who was a tax collector
(Soma, 32).
        In the early 1800, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage
designed an automatic calculation machine.  It was steam powered and could store
up to 1000 50-digit numbers.  Built into his machine were operations that
included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need.  It was
programmed by and stored data on cards with holes punched in them, appropriately
called punch cards.  His inventions were failures for the most part because of
the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of
demand for such a device (Soma, 46).
        After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers.  However,
between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances in mathematics and physics that
began to rekindle the interest (Osborne, 45).  Many of these new advances
involved complex calculations and formulas that were very time consuming for
human calculation.  The first major use for a computer in the U.S. was during
the 1890 census.  Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, developed a new
punched-card system tha...

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