The History of Computer Programming Research Paper

The History of Computer Programming - Research Paper Example Computer programming started in the 19th century, though scientists had started designing several devices such as calculators for various purposes before this period. Charles Babbage designed the first programmable computer in 1835, called the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine could be programmed to solve computational problems. Ada Lovelace designed the first program for the Analytical Engine and invented the programming loop and subroutine. Herman Hollerith invented the concept of data recording on machine readable media in the late 1880s. He used punched cards and invented two machines namely the tabulator and keypunch to process the cards (Campbell-Kelly and Aspray 45). In the 1940s, computer coding was done manually and then entered into the system as the systems were slow and had limited memory. Computer programming languages such as Plankalkul, C-10, and ENIAC were developed. A machine called Robinson was developed in 1940 by the British in order to decrypt the messages encrypted using the Enigma machine by the German military during World War II. Z3 was designed in Germany in 1941 by Konrad Zuse. He started developing Plankalkul (Plan Calculus) in 1945, which was the first algorithmic computer programming language. His machines were destroyed during the World War II and only the Z4 survived. Scientists from IBM and Harvaerd designed a programmable computer in 1944 called Mark I (O’Regan 124). In 1945, John Von Neumann invented the concepts of ‘shared-program technique’ and ‘conditional control transfer’. The shared program technique stated that complex instructions should control simple hardware instead of the simple hardware being wired for every program. The conditional control transfer enabled the development of loops with IF, THEN, and FOR statements. This concept also suggested that small code blocks could take any random order instead of the steps ordered chronologically. Von Neumann architecture was invented and it enabled the

Technological Controversy Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Technological Controversy - Term Paper Example f task from the most ordinary to the very complicated, while the machine depends on human beings to achieve increasing levels of sophistication in make and operation. It has now come to a stage when the machine can not only outperform human beings in physical performance as it has been designed to so, but is also increasingly able to outperform man in many mental capabilities. It is when grandmasters of chess are beaten by Deep Blue (Reddy, 1996, pp. 88), it is when the machine starts participating in human conversations that human beings start to cast sidelong glances at it and begin to wonder whether artificial intelligence will ever replace human intelligence. Will machines ever be able to think? Or have machines, in whatever form, already achieved the faculty that human beings have long held to be their own exclusive preserve in this world? The question under consideration has however been floating around in one form or the other. It is as old, if not older, than the computer. The popular press has had a record of being rather lenient in equating human intelligence with artificial intelligence. As early as on January 15, 1941, the Des Moines Tribune carried an article on the development of the first prototype of the ABC computer at the Iowa State University by Professor John V Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry with the headline ‘Machine Remembers’. "The giant computing machine under construction at Iowa State College has a memory consisting of 45 vacuum tubes†¦", the article reported, and went on to define it as: "An electrical computing machine said here to operate more like the human brain than any other such machine known to exist is being built." (Martin, 1991, pp. 124). The early computers were more of calculating devices when compared to modern technology. Yet, machines that coul d solve mathematical problems, including algebraic problems involving many variables, and that too at speeds unthinkable by human beings, were bound to