XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

The computer is one of the greatest inventions of its time. Billions of people use computers in their daily lives around the world. For decades, the computer has evolved from a very expensive and slow device to today's extremely smart machines with incredible computing power.

The word computer came to us from the distant eighteenth century. It is first found in the Oxford dictionary. Initially, the concept of computer was interpreted as a calculator. It was different from today's in that it could be applied to absolutely any computing device, and not necessarily electronic.

The first computers or calculators were mechanical devices and were able to perform simple mathematical operations such as addition and subtraction. In 1653, the first computer appeared capable of solving more complex problems, or rather, divide and multiply.

For some time, the technological improvement of computers has stopped, and the emphasis was on the perfection of mechanisms and size reduction. Computers also performed four basic arithmetic operations, but became lighter and more compact.

In 1822, a machine capable of solving simple equations was first invented. This was the greatest breakthrough in the field of computer technology. After approval of the project by the government, funds were allocated, and the invention was able to further develop. Soon the machine received a steam engine and became fully automatic. After a decade of continuous research, the first analytical engine appeared-a multi-purpose computer that can operate with many numbers, work with memory and be programmed using punch cards.

Since then, the evolution of the computer has gone at an accelerated pace. To mechanical devices, added electrical relays. They were joined by vacuum tubes. Power and Speed of computers grew from year to year. And in 1946, the first computer appeared. Its weight, size and power consumption, for our understanding, were simply shocking. Enough mention of the weight of 30 tons to represent the scale of the machine, but at the time it was a huge achievement.

With the advent of semiconductor devices, gradually displacing vacuum tubes, the reliability of computers increased, and the size became smaller. The computer has RAM to store information. Machines have learned to write data to magnetic disks. The leader in the production of computers at that time was IBM.

And at one point, scientists were able to integrate into a single chip several semiconductor devices. This moment was a new impetus in the development of computer technology. The computer has a disk drive, a hard drive, a mouse and a graphical interface. Its size was reduced so much that the car could be put on the table. It was the birth of a personal computer, the prototype that we know today.

Since then, mankind has been able to mass use the computer for home use. The first personal computer is the IBM 5150. Computer made on the basis of Intel 8088 processor. The computer cost $ 1,565, was easy to use and took up relatively little space. IBM 5150 was equipped with an Intel 8088 processor with a clock frequency of 4.77 megahertz and pre-installed RAM size of 16 or 64 kilobytes. In just one month, IBM was able to sell 241,683 IBM PC computers. In agreement with the leaders of Microsoft, IBM paid the creators of the program a certain amount for each copy of the operating system installed on the IBM PC. Thanks to the popularity of the IBM PC personal computer, Microsoft executives Bill Gates and Paul Allen soon became billionaires, and Microsoft took a leading position in the software market.

After the creation of the first commercial version of the personal computer, the main emphasis in the development of computer technology, was made to improve the quality and performance of machines.

Gradually, progress has brought the computer to what we see today. Machines became increasingly stronger and more compact. There were laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, etc.

Today, computers are something extremely powerful and more affordable than ever. They have penetrated almost every aspect of our lives. They are used as a powerful tool for communication and trade. The future of computers is huge.

So we are on the threshold of a new computer age, when artificial intelligence may be invented. And only time will tell whether computers will become our best friends or our worst enemies, as shown in some movies.

That's interesting. What will the development of computer technology lead to in the near future? What will our children use?