Computers Critical Analysis (1-83)

            In Computers: The Life Story of a Technology, Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro provide the reader with an in depth account of not only computers but also the general development of technology for the computer age. For most technology-oriented persons before the rise of computers mathematics was the key indulgence. A British mathematician, Charles Babbage invented both the difference engine and the analytical engine (p. 13, 20). The newer and arguably more profound invention, the analytical engine laid the groundwork for the fundamental components of the modern day computer that we know so readily incorporate into our everyday lives. Later during the early 20^th century John Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry developed a digital computer capable of solving a series of twenty nine linear algebraic equations with twenty nine unknowns. Although this invention does not seem so profound to the modern person, their development laid the groundwork for future computation inventions and helped establish the modern era of computers. Their computer will later be known as the ABC computer. During the 1960s, the computer age really started to boom and computers started to become more prevalent in every day life. The most notable development was of microprocessors by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. They would later found the company Intel.

            The history of computers, although may be a little bland in substance, is definitely essential in our understanding of our use of the computer today. Without those babysteps in development of those early computers, not only would we be deprived of a technology but also a culture that comes with it. So much of our modern culture is either created by technology or is helped spread by it. Our modern day society revolves around this technology.