Amanda Bruce Game Art: A Brief History Of Computers: Part I

The Dark Ages

The world today is very reliant on technology as a whole, ranging from the use of computers and technology in medicine and in the military to general office use and entertainment for all ages. Everyone is using computers so it’s hard to imagine a time when we lived without them, but surprisingly computers haven’t been around for long.

Computers, or what we believe to be conceptual computers date back to the industrial revolution, which is when the computer era really took off, but these ‘computers’ were not like the computers we know today.

The Analytical Engine

Charles Babbage conceived the idea of The Analytical Engine in 1834, during the industrial revolution. The Analytical Engine dwarfs the Difference Engine which Babbage designed a few years earlier. This machine is regarded as an ancestral computer of modern electronic computers as the design on this machine possesses many of the essential features of the modern general purpose computer.

Sadly Babbage never completed building the machine, mainly due to Victorian engineering and their lack of development in producing parts with sufficient precision. However in 1985 the Science Museum launched a project to build The Analytical Engine from the original designs.

Colossus

World War II greatly increased the production and invention of computers. The need for intelligent computers for code breaking meant that the development of machines was greatly improved. Developed and used by British codebreakers in 1944 Colossus was the world’s first electronic digital computer that was programmable. This huge computer was used to decipher German messages in WWII.

A massively important and influential machine impressively helped win the war against Hitler by breaking the Enigma code, due to its innovative design and programmable system.

SAGE
After the Second World War, new technology was still being invented and used. In 1954 SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) a computerised air defense system was designed to track radar data in realtime.

SAGE, 1954
A gigantic computerized air defense system, SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) was designed to help the Air Force track radar data

This huge machine was used by the Air Force weighed 300 tons and took up a whole floor of a concrete blockhouse!

IBM system/360

In 1964 the IBM system/360 was created. A machine that took up a whole office space was part of a family of interchangeable computers was the first to complete a range of applications, small to large, commercial to scientific. Users were able to change features without having to make software updates.

Higher end models were used in NASA’s Apollo missions aswell as air traffic control systems.

DEC PDP-8

1965 brought the production of the first minicomputer. A very important invention as the transiston from room sized computers to something that would fit on a desk in an office brings about the development of the modern computer.