The first electronic computer, called ENIAC (abbreviation of electronic digital integrator and computer), was born in the United States in February 1946.
The idea of developing electronic computers came into being during the Second World War. At that time, the fierce fighting was in full swing, and the weapons and equipment of various countries were far worse than now. The main strategic weapons are aircraft and artillery, but there are no Scud missiles, Patriot air defense missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Therefore, it is very necessary and urgent to research and develop new artillery and missiles. To this end, the US Army Ordnance Department established a "Ballistic Research Laboratory" in Aberdeen, Maryland.
The U.S. military requires the laboratory to provide six shooting tables to the army artillery units every day for technical appraisal of missile development. Don't underestimate these six firepower lists, they need amazing workload! In fact, each firepower meter has to calculate hundreds of trajectories, and do you know what the mathematical model of each trajectory is? A set of very complicated nonlinear equations. These equations cannot be solved accurately, and can only be calculated approximately by numerical methods.
But it is not easy to approximate the solution by numerical method! According to the calculation tools at that time, even if the laboratory hired more than 200 calculators to work overtime, it would take about two months to work out a fire list. In the era of "time is victory", how can such a slow speed work? I'm afraid the defeat will be decided before advanced weapons are developed.
In order to change this unfavorable situation, John Moakley, who worked in Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania at that time, put forward the preliminary idea of trial-producing the first electronic computer in 1942, hoping to use electronic tubes instead of relays to improve the calculation speed of the machine.
Upon learning this idea, the US military immediately allocated funds to support it, and set up a research team headed by Mosily and eckert to start research and development, with a budget of $654.38+$5,000, which was a huge sum at that time. If it weren't for the war, who would be willing to pay so much money! Although war is evil, it does not occasionally promote the development of science and technology.
Fortunately, Feng, a mathematician who worked as a consultant at the Ballistics Institute and participated in the development of the first atomic bomb in the United States, said. Neumann (v? N weumann (Hungarian-American) joined the development team in the middle of the development process with a large number of calculation problems encountered in the development of atomic bombs. He made important contributions to solving many key problems of computers, thus ensuring the smooth appearance of computers.
Although ENIAC is huge in size and amazing in power consumption, its operation speed is only a few thousand times (the current supercomputer has the fastest operation of trillions of times per second! ), but it is 1000 times faster than the existing computing equipment at that time, and it also has the function of automatically executing arithmetic operation, logical operation and storing data according to pre-programmed programs. ENIAC announced the beginning of a new era. Since then, the door to scientific computing has also been opened.
Where was the world's first electronic computer born? Many people will say that the ENIAC computer (electronic digital integrator and computer), which was born and started running in Philadelphia on February 4th, 1946, is the first electronic computer in the world. However, careful readers will find that the University of Pennsylvania, the birthplace of this computer, only calls it "the world's first all-electronic digital computer" in its official documents. Why doesn't its owner call it the world's first electronic computer?
1997 10 10/2 1 day, the Imperial War Museum on the south bank of the Thames in London, England, began to hold an exhibition on password decoding during World War II. The words "Crosas, the first electronic computer in the world" suddenly appeared in the exhibition. It is said that "Crosas" came out more than two years before ENIAC computer. During World War II, it deciphered a large number of German secrets. After the war, it was secretly destroyed.
165438+ 10/4, the reporter drove to blakely Park, 80km north of London, where he interviewed Tony, director of blakely Park Foundation. Mr. Thayer. Blakely Parker was the main force to crack the code in Britain during World War II ...
Question 2: Who invented the computer? Why did you invent the computer? Who invented it? The original meaning of puter is "calculator", that is to say, humans will invent computers with the initial purpose of helping to deal with complex digital operations. The concept of manual calculator can be traced back to Pascal, a great French thinker in the 7th century. Pascal's father is the tax director. At that time, the monetary system was not decimal, so it was very troublesome to calculate. Pascal used the gear principle to assist his father and invented the first calculator that can add and subtract. Later, the German mathematician Leibniz improved it and invented a calculator that can do multiplication and division. After that, although the function of the calculator was improved and refined, the real electric calculator could not be manufactured until AD 1944. The first machine that can really be called a computer was born in the United States in 1946. It was invented by Mao Qili and eckert, and its name is ENIAC. This computer uses vacuum tubes to process signals, so it is huge (occupying one room) and consumes high power (everyone in the town knows when to use it, because the lights in every household are dimmed! ), and the memory capacity is very low (only 100 words), but it is already a great progress in human science and technology. And we usually call this kind of computer using vacuum tube the first generation computer. The first generation computers were as big as two classrooms and much smaller than the personal computers we usually use now. At that time, the computer part was a vacuum tube (now I can't find it), and what was archived was punch cards. Without the design concept of predecessors and the invention of computers, it is still difficult to define who invented computers. Here are two items. I don't know which is right. It was invented for war. 1. 1940, Walter, USA? Aiken made the first new computer and named it "Mark 1". This computer is huge and noisy, and can only handle two extra problems per second, but it is the earliest computer after all. 2. Generally speaking, the first computer in the world was designed and developed in 1945 by two professors of the University of Pennsylvania-Mochili and eckert. Its English name is ENIAC, and it is actually an electronic literacy computer. However, before this, people have been studying computers for a long time.
Question 3: Why did scientists invent computers? The Significance of Informatization Many countries in the world have put forward their own informatization strategies, scrambling to build their own information superhighways and spare no effort to develop and popularize information technology. The fundamental reason is that informatization can have a great impact on its own economic and social development and help improve the quality of life of its citizens. This chapter first analyzes the characteristics of information technology, then discusses the social impact of informatization, and finally discusses the significance of China's choice of accelerating informatization strategy based on the national conditions of China. Section 1 Characteristics and Functions of Information Technology The various influences of informatization on social and economic development are rooted in the characteristics of information technology. Compared with other technologies, the author thinks that information technology mainly has the following characteristics: Wang Xiangdong: Information technology progress and industrial development. See the book Crossing the Century: Technological Progress and Industrial Development edited by Zheng Youjing, Ming Anshu, Wang Xiangdong and Liu Manqiang. (1) wider applicability and stronger permeability. Information is an indispensable factor in all production activities, economic activities and social life, and it shows its importance more and more with the passage of time. Therefore, modern information technology has a wider application. At present, the key application fields of emerging electronic information technology have covered manufacturing, product design, office business, family life, medical care, education, transportation and communication, commerce, scientific research, entertainment, security, finance, meteorology, resource survey, military, mass communication and many other aspects. It is estimated that 65% of the world gross national product (GNP) is related to integrated circuits and computers. He He: High-tech ―― Cross-century Strategic Issues, Jiangsu Science and Technology Press, 1992. If so, no technology in history has had such a wide and profound impact on human society as modern information technology. ② Knowledge is highly intensive, and the economic and social benefits are remarkable. If other technologies are the extension of human physical strength, then information technology is the enhancement of human intelligence. The popularization and application of information technology is conducive to replacing and saving the consumption of energy and other raw materials and reducing pollution. For example, papermaking consumes a lot of wood and water resources, and sewage will be discharged during the manufacturing process, causing environmental pollution. A survey in the United States shows that the annual cost of printing various forms in the world alone is $654.38+02 billion, of which 654.38+0/3 forms are wasted due to content changes and other reasons. The survey was organized by the American magazine Happiness. Please refer to Computer World, September 1997. Now, the conditions for replacing paper with electronic media as an information carrier have not only been initially met, but have also begun to become a reality. The application of information technology is also conducive to improving the technical performance of labor tools, improving people's ability to regulate and control the production and labor process and the actual management level, optimizing the allocation and rational flow of production factors, and closely linking production with the market, supply and demand. All these will bring remarkable economic and social benefits. ③ The development speed is faster, the update cycle is shorter and the timeliness is stronger. For example, the development and production of integrated circuits in the world follow G Moore's Law. Gordon Moore is a famous expert of Intel, and the development law of computer integrated circuit technology he discovered is called Moore's Law. That is, since the 1960s, the integration has doubled every 18 months, while the cost has been reduced by half. Although the computer was invented less than 50 years ago, the development of the sixth generation products has become a hot spot. Microcomputer has only been around for more than 20 years. Not only has there been revolutionary progress in design technology, but new models have also come out. Optical communication, satellite communication, mobile communication and multimedia communication have promoted the continuous development of communication technology; In particular, the current digital technology revolution is promoting the great integration of computers, telecommunications, television, information content and other aspects, making all aspects of the information industry present a changing scene. (4) Large investment and high risk. The development, renewal and popularization of modern information technology need investment. Now, in the field of information technology, the technical design and manufacturing are becoming more and more complex and precise, the technical difficulty is getting bigger and bigger, and the coverage of information network is getting wider and wider. Therefore, the related R&; The cost and the demand for capital construction investment, especially the initial investment, are often huge (see chapter II, investment plans for building information superhighways in some countries). However, considering the strong timeliness of information technology, huge investment also means huge risks. Once the decision-making is wrong, it will not only cause heavy losses, but also delay the historical opportunity of development. Japan has spent more than 20 years and invested a huge sum of money to develop a simulation-based > >
Question 4: What is the significance of inventing computers? Marx said that all tools are extensions of the human body and computers are extensions of the human brain.
The invention of the computer enhanced human's computing ability and liberated human from endless mental activities. At first, computers were dedicated to the military (such as calculating the trajectory of artillery shells) and cutting-edge scientific and technological departments (such as satellite orbit calculation). With the development of science and technology, computers have gradually entered the lives of ordinary people, greatly improving the utilization rate of human labor. Now there are almost no offices without computers, and the functions of computers are becoming more and more perfect. Whether it is complex 3D modeling and rendering, or simple table text typesetting, computers play an important role.
Summary: The significance of inventing computers lies in making better use of human labor.
Question 5: Why did humans invent computers? How boring is it not to invent computers?
Question 6: How was the computer invented? The world's first electronic computer was born in 1946 at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, USA. Her name is "Enik".
The first computer in the world was invented in World War II. Because it is used to draw ballistic maps for the US Navy. It is half the size of a football field and contains 500 miles of wires. It uses electromagnetic signals to move mechanical parts. Its running speed is very slow, it runs every 3-5 seconds, and its adaptability is poor, so it is only suitable for special fields. He is just a general-purpose computer.
In just a few decades, computers have miraculously multiplied for four generations. The first generation was a computer running with vacuum tubes. Eleven years later, the second generation transistor calculator appeared. Seven years later, the third generation integrated circuit computer was updated. Ten years later, a large-scale integrated circuit computer was invented. In the past few decades, computers have made such great progress, each time more advanced and more widely used. Thus becoming the darling of modern society.
Question 7: Why did humans invent computers? All because of laziness. At first, in order to quickly and conveniently calculate and calculate a large amount of data, there was a computer, so it was also called a computer.
Question 8: Why did humans invent the convenient way of work communication and data processing management brought by computers? File search methods can also bring laziness, viruses, computer syndrome and computer game/chat mania. A new way of plagiarism. New ways of media communication and hype. Also, you have a chance to ask questions now. . .