mainframes and pcs essays

mainframes and pc's essays Mainframes were conceived from an idea from Charles Babbage, however it would be seventy years later. Under the direction of Howard Aiken in 1941 Harvard University developed the Mark I Calculator. Within five years the Mark I Calculator was outdone by the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) developed at the University of Pennsylvania. The ENIAC was introduced as the first digital computer, and could compute up to 5000 times faster than any previously introduced computer. The ENIAC did not go over well due to the high initial cost and the high ongoing maintenance costs. Financial backing from the US Census Bureau led the same developers of the ENIAC to design the BINAC. The BINAC helped to calculate the 1950s census which produced enough capital for J.P. Eckert and John Mauchly to begin work on the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC.) However, due to financial trouble again Eckert and Mauchly sold the UNIVAC to Remington Rand. Remington Rands substantial finances lead to the completion of the UNIVAC and was delivered to the US Census Bureau in 1951. The UNIVAC was the first computer that utilized stored memory and did not require constant attention from engineers. In the mid and late 1950s several milestones are reached in the computing industry. IBM sales their first commercial computer, the first transistorized computer (TX-O) was completed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, development of two important computer programming languages Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) and List Processor (LISP.) Almost thirty years later the personal computer (PC) will start being introduced. It was 1975 when MITS Altair the first 8080 based kit computer was introduced followed by the Imsai 8080. There were few other models that showed up but it was the Apple II introduced in April of 1977 that was dubbed the first true personal computer. The Apple II was ...