From the history of computing devices in russia

Nowadays there is a kind of revolution, based on machines that greatly increase man’s thinking capabilities of planning, analyzing, computing and controlling. Hundreds of millions of computers are already in daily use penetrating almost all spheres of our modern society, from nuclear energy production and missile design to the processing of bank checks and medical diagnoses.

The development of mechanical calculating machines made the digital computers necessary. An ordinary arithmometer and a desk key calculator have given rise to electronic digital computers. Digital computers came into being in the first half of the 17^th century. Many outstanding Russian mathematicians of that time created mechanical calculating devices.

The famous Russian scientist M.V. Lomonosov compiled a lot of calculating tables and several computing devices concerning different fields of science and engineering.

In 1874 the Russian engineer V.T Ordner invented a special counter wheel which is used in modern arithmometers and calculators.

P.L. Chebishev, an academician, made a valuable contribution to the field of computing machine. He is known to have many good ideas in mathematics, some of which have been named after him. For example, the Chebishev polynomials play a unique role in the field of orthogonal functions. In 1878 he constructed the original computing machine which was exhibited in Paris. In 1882 P.L. Chebishev invented an arithmometer performing automatically multiplication and division. The principle of automatization put into this computing machine is steel widely used all over the world when developing the most modern computers.

HIGH-SPEED MEMORY

Early computers used mercury-filled tubes, called ‘delay lines’ for high-speed internal memory. This form of memory is known as acoustic memory. Delay lines had initially been developed for echo cancellation in radar; the idea of using them as memory devices originated with Eckert at the Moore School. Mercury delay line memory was used in EDSAC, BINAC, SEAC, Pilot Model ACE, EDVAC, DEUCE, and full-scale ACE. The fundamental disadvantages of the delay line were that random access is impossible and, moreover, the time taken for an instruction, or number, to emerge from a delay line depends on where in the line it happens to be.

In order to minimize waiting-time, Turing arranged for instructions to be stored not in consecutive positions in the delay line, but in relative positions selected by the programmer in such a way that each instruction would emerge at exactly the time it was required, in so far as this was possible. Each instruction contained a specification of the location of the next. This system subsequently became known as ‘optimum coding’. It was an integral feature of every version of the ACE design. The advantage of optimum coding in terms of speed was considerable. Thanks to optimum coding, the Pilot Model ACE was able to do a floating point multiplication in 3 milliseconds (Wilkes's EDSAC required 4.5 milliseconds to perform a single fixed point multiplication).

The final major event in the history of electronic computation was the development of magnetic core memory by Jay Forrester. Once the absolute reliability, relative cheapness, high capacity and permanent life of ferrite core memory became apparent, core soon replaced other forms of high-speed memory. The IBM 704 and 705 computers (announced in May and October 1954, respectively) brought core memory into wide use.

PERSONAL COMPUTER

A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer which size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals. A personal computer may be a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet PCD or a handheld PC (also called palmtop).

A modern PC usually has the following devices: a scanner, the CPU (a microprocessor), primary storage (RAM), expansion cards (graphics cards, etc.), a power supply, an optical disk drive, secondary storage (hard disk), a motherboard, speakers, a monitor, system software, a keyboard, a mouse, an external hard disk, a printer.

These components can usually be put together with little knowledge to build a computer. The motherboard is a main part of a computer that connects all devices together. The memory card(s), graphics card and processor are mounted directly onto the motherboard (the processor in a socket and the memory and graphics cards in expansion slots). The mass storage is connected to it with cables and can be installed in the computer case or in a separate case. This is the same for the keyboard and mouse, except that they are external and connect to the I/O panel on the back of the computer. The monitor is also connected to the I/O panel, either through an onboard port on the motherboard, or a port on the graphics card.

Several functions (implemented by chipsets) can be integrated into the motherboard, typically USB and network, but also graphics and sound. Even if these are present, a separate card can be added if what is available isn't sufficient.

The hardware capabilities of personal computers can sometimes be extended by the addition of expansion cards connected via an expansion bus. Most personal computers as of 2005 have multiple physical PCI expansion slots. Many also include an AGP bus and expansion slot or a PCI Express bus and one or more expansion slots, but few PCs contain both buses.

COMPUTER PARTS

The main computer parts of a normal desktop personal computer are a motherboard, the central processing unit, RAM or the Random Access Memory, unit-supplying power, a hard disk, and a CD ROM. These are the basic computer parts necessary for the smooth functioning of any computer. Each of them have a distinct area of operation and all together coordinate to produce the required output with the help of the input fed into the computer.

The motherboard is a central board housing the basic computer parts like the main memory and the microprocessor and connects to other accessory units such as audio and the video units. The central processing unit is the main language centre, which interprets the human language into the machine language, and vice versa to carry out the tasks as specified through the inputs.

The Random Access Memory is one of the important computer parts and is the storehouse of data. This centre allows you to both write into and read any data from its storage capacities. You can access any data at any time.

The hard disk is a very important component and consists of rotating platters. One common arm houses both the read head and the write head. This arm helps in the smooth movement of the two heads across the full length of the constantly moving platter. These fields have magnetic energy, which use the electrical energy coming in to perform the assigned tasks.

The CD-ROM means Compact Disc - Read Only Memory. This disc is flat and has data in digital format. You need to use it through the CD-ROM drive. A video card helps you to view the stores images through the monitor of a computer. All these different computer parts require power supply to function at the best level.

MEMORY

Information put into a computer must be stored so that the central processing unit can easily access it. This storage area is called the computer memory and is where programs, data, and intermediate results reside while awaiting process­ing.

In order to represent information electronically, a system has to be devised to accomplish this representation. In our everyday language we use words, each made up of letters. In English all words are formed by combining any of the 26 letters in the alphabet. Thus, if we wanted to create a new word, it would first have to be made of letters, and second be different from all other words. A computer uses much the same system, except that at the most funda­mental level it does not have 26 letters to use. Because it is an electrical device, it only has two basic states, on or off, like a light bulb. These two states are usually represented symbolically by 1 and 0, which are the "letters" of a com­puter's alphabet. Consequently, all information has to be stored in combina­tions of 1's and 0's.

The memory of a computer, therefore, consists of components that can be either on or off. Originally these components were vacuum tubes; these were soon replaced by magnetic cores, later the cores were replaced by a semiconductor component that per­forms the same function more efficiently.

Computers can have memories that range from a few thousand words to many millions. The memory size is usually described in terms of the number of characters it can store. A character can be a letter, number, or punc­tuation mark. The number of bits required to store one character is called a byte, and memory is usually measured in thousand of bytes or kilobytes, called K or KB, from kilo meaning thousand. So a computer with 16,000 bytes of memory is labeled a 16K machine. A computer with 64,000 words of memory is called a 64 K machine. For very large machines the word megabyte, meaning millions of bytes, is often used.

THE MICROPROCESSOR

The microprocessor is also known as a CPU or central processing unit. It is a complete computation engine that is fabricated on a single chip.

The first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, introduced in 1971. The 4004 was not very powerful, all it could do was to add and subtract. But it was amazing that everything was on one chip. Prior to the 4004, engineers built computers either from collections of chips or from discrete components (transistors wired one at a time). The 4004 powered one of the first portable electronic calculators.

The first microprocessor used in home computers was the Intel 8080, a complete 8-bit computer on one chip, introduced in 1974. The first microprocessor to make a real splash in the market was the Intel 8088, introduced in 1979 and incorporated into the IBM PC (which first appeared around 1982). If you are familiar with the PC market and its history, you know that the PC market moved from the 8088 to the 80286 to the 80386 to the 80486 to the Pentium to the Pentium II to the Pentium III to the Pentium 4. All of these microprocessors are made by Intel and all of them are improvements on the basic design of the 8088. The Pentium 4 can execute any piece of code that ran on the original 8088, but it does it about 5,000 times faster.

The following table helps you to understand the differences between the processors that Intel has introduced over the years.

Name	Date	Transistors	Microns	Clock Speed	Data Width	MIPS
8080	1974	6,000	6	2 MHz	8 bits	0.64
8088	1979	29,000	3	5 MHz	16 bits, 8-bit bus	0.33
80286	1982	134,000	1.5	6 MHz	16 bits	1
80386	1985	275,000	1.5	16 MHz	32 bits	5
80486	1989	1,200,000	1	25 MHz	32 bits	20
Pentium	1993	3,100,000	0.8	60 MHz	32 bits, 64-bit bus	100
Pentium II	1997	7,500,000	0.35	233 MHz	32 bits, 64-bit bus	~300
Pentium III	1999	9,500,000	0.25	450 MHz	32 bits, 64-bit bus	~510
Pentium IV	2000	42,000,000	0.18	1.5 GHz	32 bits, 64-bit bus	~1,700

MOUSE

A mouse on a computer is a small, slidable device that users hold and slide around to point at, click on, and sometimes drag objects on screen in a graphical user interface using a pointer on screen. Almost all Personal Computers have mice. It may be plugged into a computer's rear mouse socket, or as a USB device, or, more recently, may be connected wirelessly via a USB antenna or Bluetooth antenna. In the past, they had a single button that users could press down on the device to "click" on whatever the pointer on the screen was hovering over. Now, however, many mice have two or three buttons (possibly more); a "right click" function button on the mouse, which performs a secondary action on a selected object, and a scroll wheel, which users can rotate using their fingers to "scroll" up or down. The scroll wheel can also be pressed down, and therefore be used as a third button. Some mouse wheels may be tilted from side to side to allow sideways scrolling. Different programs make use of these functions differently, and may scroll horizontally by default with the scroll wheel, open different menus with different buttons, among others. These functions may be user defined through software utilities.

Mice traditionally detected movement and communicated with the computer with an internal "mouse ball"; and used optical encoders to detect rotation of the ball and tell the computer where the mouse has moved. However, these systems were subject to low durability, accuracy and required internal cleaning. Modern mice use optical technology to directly trace movement of the surface under the mouse and are much more accurate and durable. They work on a wider variety of surfaces and can even operate on walls, ceilings or other non-horizontal surfaces.

CD AND CD DRIVES

CD is the acronym for Compact Disc. It is an optical disc which is used to store digital data. It was originally invented for storing digital audio. It is approximately 4.7 inches in diameter and can hold approximately 680 megabytes (MB) of data. If you would like to be able to store large amounts of data, CDs are the way to go. Compact discs are now being used as a storage media for data, music, video, etc.

The most common types of digital media storage are (a) CD-ROMs which are used to store computer data and (b) CDs which are used by the music industry to store digital recordings. They are both 'Read Only^' which means that the recorded data can only be read or played.

From the computer standpoint, a compact disc is a type of optical disc storage media which comes in various formats. These formats include: 1. CD-ROMS which are 'read only'; 2. CD-Rs which can be written to once and then 'read only'; they cannot be erased or recorded upon; 3. CD-RWs which can be written to numerous times; these are very popular to the computer user for making music and backing up data.

CD Drivers are disc drives which read Compact Discs (CDs). They are versatile and transportable and can be used to perform various tasks such as reading data from the computer and listening to audio. The type of CD drive should depend on what you will be using it to do (read or read and write). CD drives are at various speeds - 2X, ЗХ, 4Х and so on... The higher the speed the faster the drive will read or write data.

ALGORITHMS

Problems of numerical kind were written as early as 1800 BC when Babylonian mathematicians gave rules for solving many types of equations. The rules were as step-to-step procedures applied systematically to particular numerical examples. The word “algorithm” itself originated in the Middle East. It came from the Latin version of the last name of the Persian scholar Abu Jáfar Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khowaresmi (Algorithmi) whose textbook on arithmetic employed for the first time Hindu positional decimal notation and gave birth to algebra as an independent branch of mathematics. Originally algorithms were concerned solely with numerical calculations. Euclid’s algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers is the best illustration. There are many properties of Euclid’s algorithm which has become a basic tool in modern algebra and number theory.

Nowadays the concept of an algorithm is one of the most fundamental notions in mathematics. In all its branches the solution of any mathematical problem requires a precise algorithm.

In computer science the term “algorithm” is one of the most essential. It is defined as a set of rules or directions (instructions) for getting a specific output from a specific input. The distinguishing feature of an algorithm is that all vagueness must be eliminated; the rules must describe operations so simple and well-defined that they can be executed by a machine. Algorithm in a computer science may be of non-numerical kind as computer science deals not only with numbers. It also deals with the manipulation of symbols that need not to represent numbers. A computer program is the statement of an algorithm in some well-defined language.

COMPUTER SOFTWARE

The computer software is the different data and the programs stored in the computer. This is the brain of the computer, which uses the physical components of the hardware system for its smooth functioning.

The computer software has two main categories - system software and application software. The application software refers to the specific software like the databases, software pertaining to any particular business or the games software. The system software is the official coordinator between the hardware components and the main system of the computer. It functions with the help of the main operating systems, tools for the various programs, servers, the device drivers and other utility programs.

The application software is a separate component, which requires loading into the main hardware system of the computer. Although such software is an independent program, this computer software needs to maintain proper compatibility levels with the present hardware system in the computer to function. Other specific software is for satisfying the specific needs of the users. These include word processors, spreadsheets, animations, graphics, etc.

All computer software requires loading into the hardware system. Only then, can the hardware coordinate with the software and function accordingly. The application software at first gives the instructions to the systems software, which in turn passes it on to the hardware in machine language. Again, the necessary output comes back in the similar fashion through the same channels for you to use it. This systematic process is necessary for the input and output conversions.

The computer software is available in different forms. Some are complete packages containing the necessary tools and compilers for the implementation while some are single programs. Some others are very huge ones, which include many different tools and are a process by itself. Overall, they form the backbone of any computer and the computer will be meaningless in their absence.

TYPES OF SOFTWARE

Computer software, or just software is a general term primarily used for digitally stored data such as computer programs and other kinds of information read and written by computers. Today, this includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes and records. The term was coined in order to contrast to the term “hardware” (meaning physical devices).

Practical computer systems divide software systems into three major classes: system software, programming software and application software, although the distinction is arbitrary, and often blurred.

System software helps run the computer hardware and computer system. It includes a combination of the following: device drives, operating systems, servers, utilities, windowing systems. The purpose of systems software is to unburden the applications of the particular computer being used, including such accessories as communications devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner.

Programming software usually provides tools to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and software using different programming languages in a more convenient way. The tools include: compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, text editors. An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a single application that attempts to manage all these functions.

Application software allows users to accomplish one or more specific (not directly computer development related) tasks. Typical applications include: industrial automation, business software, video games, telecommunications, databases, educational software, military software, medical software, image editing, spreadsheet, word processing, decision making software and others.

OPERATING SYSTEMS

Operating systems are programs that control the computer. Part of the operating system controls the operation of the hardware such as activating printers and disk drives. Another part accepts input from the keyboard. Other parts perform tasks like allocating memory to various pro­grams, or determining the order in which programs should be processed.

Each operating system is designed specifically for the computer it con­trols and thus enables the computer to optimize the use of the hardware fea­tures. The various parts of the operating system can be regarded as the servant of the user and the master of the computer. Unfortunately, some operating systems are so badly written or so poorly documented that this is not always the case. This state of affairs is changing, however, and operating systems are becoming increasingly easy to use. Generally, users cannot and should not make changes to operating systems.

One other feature that is becoming more common among operating systems is their standardization across computers. One example of this is the CP/M operating system, which has been written to operate on microcomputers. It has the important feature that it appears identical no matter which computer it is used on. So, even though the internal details of each system may be different, when a user wants to erase a program, for example, the procedure for doing so is identical regardless of which computer is being used. Operating systems like this make programs transportable, or movable, from one computer to another without apparent change for the user. Thus, a program that works with CP/M on one computer will work with it on another.

BASIC

BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. Originally devised as a teaching tool, it become widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s, and remains popular to this day in a handful of heavy evolved dialects.

The original BASIC language was invented in 1964 by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurts at Dartmouth College and implemented by a team of Dartmouth students under their direction. In the following years, as other dialects of BASIC appeared, Kemeny and Kurt’s original BASIC dialects became known as Dartmouth BASIC.

BASIC was designed to allow students to write programs using time- sharing computer terminals. It was based on eight design principles: 1. it must be easy for beginner to use; 2. it must be a general-purpose language; 3. it must allow advanced features to be added for experts (while keeping the language simple for beginners); 4. it must be interactive; 5. it must provide clear and friendly error message; 6. it must respond fast for small programs; 7. it won’t require an understanding of computer hardware; 8.it must shield the user from the operating system.

Almost immediately after BASIC being released, computer professionals started deriding BASIC as too slow and too simple. Nevertheless, the designers of the language decided that it should remain in the public domain in order to help it spread. They also made it available to high schools in the Dartmouth area and spent a considerable amount of effort in promoting the language. As a result BASIC became relatively widespread and became fairly popular on newer minicomputers like the DEC PDP series and the Data General Nova.

APPLICATIONS OF LARGE COMPUTERS

Mainframes are used by manufacturers, government agencies retail store chains, airlines, banks, and insurance companies for corporate-wide business data processing that requires heavy use of many input and output units. Applications include payroll computation, inventory con­trol, banking, airline reservations, preparation of insurance policies, and check processing. Each transaction in such cases requires rather simple computations, but a myriad of transactions must be processed by the computer within a short time period with heavy utilization of numerous printers, computer terminals, and disks. Minicomputers are used in a similar manner but with fewer input and output units than mainframes, although they perform complex calculations for scientific and engineering prob­lems as well.

Supercomputers are designed for use in solving large-scale scientific and engineering problems that would take excessive computation time if solved by mainframes or minicomputers. These problems are to solve hundreds or more equations, requiring high precision. Examples of such problems are weather forecasting, planning of oil refinery production, communications network planning, movie production, and weapon design. Massively parallel computers are used for large-scale scientific and engineering problems that can be processed mostly in parallel. Supercomputers and massively parallel computers have recently been applied to business problems as well. For example, massively parallel computers are well-suited for information retrieval because the operation can be sped up by searching different segments of an information source is parallel.