In World War II, both opposing sides bombed each other's military targets with planes and artillery. If you want to shoot accurately, you must calculate and draw the shooting map accurately. Only by looking up the table to determine the muzzle angle can the fired shells hit the flying target. But each number has to be calculated thousands of times through four operations, and it takes more than ten people months to complete a chart with a hand-cranked mechanical computer. In view of this situation, people began to study using electron tubes as electronic switches to improve the operation speed of computers. Many scientists took part in experiments and research, and finally made the world's first electronic computer, named Eniac.
In the mid-1940s, the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Molic and eckert, developed an "Electronic Numerical Integration and Computer" (ENIAC for short) for projectile trajectory calculation in the Aberdeen Research Laboratory of the US Army Ordnance Department. This computer named "Eniac" covers an area of 170 square meters and has a total weight of 30 tons. It uses 18000 lamps, 6000 switches, 7000 resistors, 10000 capacitors, 500000 wires, and consumes 140 kW, which can be added for 5000 times. This behemoth appeared in the United States on February 1946. The appearance of this computer marks the beginning of the computer age.
Before the earliest, the predecessor of the computer was something called an adder, which was invented by Pascal, a French mathematician. Later, it was gradually improved, and it could do the differential expansion of-*/four operations.
180 1 French Joseph? Joseph Jaka invented the use of punched cards. This introduces two important concepts for the future development of computers:
First of all, information can be encoded on punched cards, that is, programming.
Second, information can be stored on cards, which can be connected in series as a series of instructions, that is, programs. Later, a man appeared. Historically, we called him the father of computers-Charles Babbage. He made a more powerful machine, called the analysis engine, which is very similar to modern computers in concept ... These inventions are all tools used to assist calculation, and have no function of remembering and storing data. So it can't be called a computer before 1946 (if the function of a computer is strictly defined). Mao Qili and eckert in the United States invented the first generation computer-ENIAC, which was as big as two classrooms. At that time, the computer parts were vacuum tubes, and what was archived was punch cards.
Therefore, the invention of computer is the result of the joint efforts of a group of scientific researchers, but the design thought of mathematician von Neumann played a key role in it, so von Neumann is called the father of modern computer.