The computer has had a long and exciting history. The first computers were developed in the 1940s, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that IBM popularized them.
Computers have changed dramatically since then, with many advances made to increase their speed, power, and memory capacity. Nowadays, if your computer or laptop breaks down, you only need to bring it to a computer repair store. There, they can install more memory or upgrade its components. You don’t need to throw it away, which speaks much of the technological advancements available today.
However, its ancestors looked nothing like the machines the world knows today. This article will look at some of these changes and the expected developments in this field.
IBM
The American company International Business Machines (IBM) produced one of the world’s first computers in 1952. The IBM 701 was a vacuum tube computer and did not have any hard drives because it stored data on punch cards that ran through the machine.
In 1954, IBM introduced its famous Model 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, which shifted from punched card systems to magnetic memory devices. In the 1960s, IBM created the first transistor-based computers, and the company began its domination of the computer market with its System 360 series.
IBM also made a move in 1964 that would revolutionize the computer industry: it released a time-sharing system known as TSS/360. This brought multi-user computing to businesses and universities, allowing them to share expensive computers.
DEC
Not all computing innovations came from IBM, however. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), created by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, produced some of the most popular minicomputers in the 1970s. DEC’s PDP-8 computer used integrated circuits that were easily mass-produced, which brought down the cost of computers and made them affordable for many people and institutions.
DEC also created a computer called the VAX in 1977 that was programmed using an easy-to-use programming language known as the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX).
Xerox
Another company that helped innovate computing was Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which created the first graphical user interface (GUI). This was a computer system that used windows and icons to represent files, applications, and devices. The company also helped create laser printing technology and ethernet networking, two other important innovations in computing.
MITS
A personal computer called the Altair 8800 was released by microcomputer company Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in the 1970s. Many consider their computer to be the first commercially successful personal computer.
Apple II
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs developed and released the Apple II in 1977 as one of the first fully assembled circuit board computers. Their revolutionary computer only needed a power supply and video monitor to operate. It was followed by today’s best-selling computer, the IBM PC, released in 1981.
The MAC
Apple later introduced the Macintosh computer, which featured a mouse and GUI that allowed people to easily click on icons rather than typing their commands into text boxes.
Birth of the Internet
The 1990s saw the rise of the World Wide Web and the dot-com bubble, which resulted in great innovation and investment in computers and computer technology. Even though much of this was later deemed to be an economic disaster, the 1990s still saw several essential technological developments that changed how we use computers today.
The first web browser was created in 1993 for the NeXT computer, which Steve Jobs developed after he left Apple. It was called WebRunner and ran on the company’s own version of UNIX that they called NeXTSTEP.
Gates released another version of Windows in 1995, known as Windows 95, which featured DirectX graphics technology that allowed users to play 3D games when most people were using 2D graphics. This was followed by Windows 98 and XP, which became the world’s most popular OS for PCs.
Computer Accessories and Gadgets
The first webcam was created in 1996 by computer science professor Steve Hollan at the University of Cambridge as a way for his students to communicate with him easily.
The first iPod was released in 2001 by Apple, which gave birth to the iPhone and iPad and a wide variety of other mobile devices that allowed us to take our computers with us wherever we went.
Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and quickly became a popular way for people to share their lives with their friends and family worldwide.
Finally, YouTube was created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees to easily share videos with people, inspiring many other social media sites that have allowed the world to connect with others. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, the world uses computers for everything from playing video games to conducting scientific research. Technologies developed in previous decades have allowed the world to access the internet anywhere easily and communicate with others worldwide in real-time through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. There is no doubt that computing will continue to change in the years to come.