In 1889, the American scientist Herman Holliday developed an electric power-based electric tabulating machine to store computational data.
In 1930, American scientist Vannevar Bush built the world's first analog electronic computer.
February 14, 1946, the U.S. military customized the world's first electronic computer "electronic numerical integral computer" (ENIAC Electronic Numerical And Calculator) in the U.S. at the University of Pennsylvania launched. (Chinese name: ENIAC) is the United States Oberdeen Weapons Proving Ground in order to meet the needs of the calculation of ballistic developed into this calculator using 17840 electronic tubes, the size of 80 feet × 8 feet, weighing 28t (tons), power consumption of 170kW, its computing speed of 5000 times per second addition, the cost of about 487000 U.S. dollars. ENIAC's launch has epoch-making significance, indicating that the era of electronic computers. The introduction of ENIAC is of epoch-making significance, indicating the arrival of the era of electronic computers. In the next 60 years, computer technology has developed at an astonishing rate, and no other technology has seen its price/performance ratio increase by six orders of magnitude in 30 years.
Generation 1: Electron Tube Digital Machine (1946-1958)
Hardware, the logic element used is a vacuum electron tube, the main memory uses mercury delay line
Electron Tube Digital Computer
, cathode ray oscilloscope electrostatic memory, magnetic drums, magnetic cores; the external memory is used in magnetic tape. The software used is machine language, assembly language. Application areas to military and scientific computing.
Featured by large size, high power consumption, poor reliability. Slow speed (generally thousands to tens of thousands of times per second), expensive, but laid the foundation for the development of later computers.
Generation 2: transistor digital machine (1958-1964)
Hardware side of the operating system, high-level language and its compiled programs. The field of application was dominated by scientific computing and transaction processing, and began to enter the field of industrial control. Characterized by reduced size, reduced energy consumption, improved reliability, increased computing speed (generally 100,000 times per second, can be as high as 3 million times), performance than the first generation of computers have greatly improved.
The third generation: integrated circuit digital machine (1964-1970)
Hardware, logic components using medium and small-scale integrated circuits (MSI, SSI), the main memory is still using magnetic cores. On the software side, time-sharing operating systems and structured and scaled programming methods emerged. Characterized by faster speed (generally millions of times per second to tens of millions of times), but also a significant improvement in reliability, the price further down, the product towards generalization, serialization and standardization. Application areas are beginning to enter the field of word processing and graphic image processing.
The fourth generation: large-scale integrated circuit machine (1970 to the present)
Hardware, logic components using large-scale and very large-scale integrated circuits (LSI and VLSI). On the software side, database management systems, network management systems and object-oriented languages appeared. Characterized by the birth of the world's first microprocessor in 1971 in Silicon Valley, the United States, creating a new era of microcomputers. Application areas from scientific computing, transaction management, process control gradually to the family.
As a result of the development of integration technology, semiconductor chip integration is higher, each chip can accommodate tens of thousands or even millions of transistors, and can be the operator and controller are concentrated in a chip, thus the emergence of microprocessors, and microprocessors and large-scale, ultra-large-scale integrated circuits can be assembled into a minicomputer, which is often referred to as a microcomputer or PC machine. Microcomputers are small, inexpensive and easy to use, but its functions and computing speed has reached or even exceeded the past large-scale computers. On the other hand, the use of large-scale, ultra-large-scale integrated circuits manufactured by a variety of logic chips, has made the volume is not very large, but the speed of operation up to one hundred million or even billions of times of the giant computer. China following the successful development in 1983, 100 million times per second Galaxy Ⅰ this type of giant machine, and in 1993, the successful development of a billion times per second Galaxy Ⅱ type of general-purpose parallel giant computers. This period also produced a new generation of programming languages and database management systems and network software.
With the change of physical elements and devices, not only the mainframe of the computer has undergone a renewal, its external equipment is also constantly changing. For example, external memory, from the initial cathode ray display tube to the development of magnetic cores, magnetic drums, and later developed into a general-purpose disk, and now there is a smaller, larger capacity, faster read-only CD-ROM (CD-ROM).
With the progress of science and technology, a variety of computer technology, the rapid development of network technology, the development of computers has entered a fast and new era, computers have developed from a single function, the volume of larger to a complex function, the volume of tiny, resource networking. The future of the computer is full of variables, a substantial increase in performance is indisputable, but there are many ways to realize the performance of the leap. However, the performance of the substantial increase is not the only route of computer development, computer development should also become more and more humane, but also focus on environmental protection and so on.
Computers from the emergence of so far, through the machine language, programming language, simple operating systems and Linux, Macos, BSD, Windows and other modern operating systems, four generations, the operating speed has been greatly improved, the fourth generation of computers has reached billions of times per second. Computer also by the original only for military scientific research use to the development of everyone has, computer powerful applications, generated a huge market demand, the future performance of the computer should be towards the direction of miniaturization, networking, intelligence and giant development.
Mega
Mega refers to the development of high-speed, large storage capacity and powerful supercomputers to meet the needs of cutting-edge science and technology. As people rely on computers more and more, especially in the military and scientific research and education on the computer storage space and running speed and other requirements will be higher and higher. In addition the function of the computer is more diversified.
Miniaturization
With the emergence of microprocessors (CPU), microprocessors are beginning to be used in computers, which makes computers smaller in size and lower in cost. On the other hand, the rapid development of the software industry has improved the convenience of the operating system inside the computer, and the external equipment of the computer also tends to improve. The continuous improvement of computer theory and technology has prompted microcomputers to quickly penetrate into all industries and sectors of society, and become a necessity for people's life and learning. Over the past four decades, the size of the computer is constantly shrinking, desktop computers, laptops, handheld computers, tablet PCs gradually miniaturize the size of the computer, to provide people with convenient services. Therefore, the future of the computer will continue to tend to miniaturize, the volume will become smaller and smaller.
Networking
The Internet connects computers all over the world, and has since entered the Internet era. Computer networking has completely changed the human world, people communicate through the Internet, communication (OICQ, microblogging, etc.), educational resources **** enjoy (literature access, distance learning, etc.), information access **** enjoy (Baidu, Google), etc., especially the emergence of wireless networks, greatly improving the convenience of people using the network, the future of the computer will be further developed towards networking.
Artificial Intelligence
Computer artificial intelligence is the inevitable trend of future development. Modern computers have powerful functions and operating speed, but compared with the human brain, its intelligence and logical ability still needs to be improved. Humans are constantly exploring how to make the computer can better respond to human thinking, so that the computer can have the ability to judge the logical thinking of human beings, can communicate with human beings through thinking, abandon the previous method of relying on running the computer through the coding program, and directly to the computer to issue instructions.
Multimedia
Traditional computers process information mainly in characters and numbers. In fact, people are more accustomed to multimedia information in the form of pictures, text, sound and images. Multimedia technology can integrate graphics, images, audio, video, and text, making the object and content of information processing closer to the real world.
Technology Combination
Computer micro-processor (CPU) with transistors as the basic components, with the continuous improvement of the processor and the speed of updating and modernization, the computer structure and components will also undergo great changes. With the development of optoelectronic technology, quantum technology and biotechnology, the development of new computers has a great impetus.
Since the 1980s ALU and control unit (the two are synthesized into the central processing unit, or CPU) are gradually integrated into a single integrated circuit, called a microprocessor. The mode of operation of this type of computer is very intuitive: in a clock cycle, the computer first obtains instructions and data from memory, then executes the instruction, stores the data, and then obtains the next instruction. This process is repeated until a terminating instruction is obtained. Interpreted by the controller, the set of instructions executed by the operator is a carefully defined collection of a very limited number of simple instructions.
Molecules
Molecular computers are small, consume little power, perform operations quickly, and have large storage capacity. A molecular computer operates by absorbing information that is present in the form of charges on molecular crystals and arranging it in a more efficiently organized manner. The arithmetic process of a molecular computer is the interaction of the protein molecule with the surrounding physicochemical medium. The conversion switch is the enzyme, and the program is extremely visible in the enzyme synthesis system itself and in the structure of the protein. A computer composed of biomolecules has the ability to operate in a biochemical environment, even in a biological organism, and to exchange with the external environment in other molecular forms. It will therefore play an irreplaceable role in medical diagnosis and treatment, genetic tracking and bionic engineering. Molecular chip size is greatly reduced, but the efficiency is greatly improved, molecular computer to complete an operation, the time required is only 10 microseconds, 1 million times faster than the speed of human thought. Molecular computers have amazing storage capacity, 1 cubic meter of DNA solution can store 1 trillion trillion of binary data. Molecular computers consume very little energy, only one billionth of an electronic computer. Because the raw material of the molecular chip is a protein molecule, the molecular computer has both the function of self-repair, but also can be directly linked to the molecular living body.
Quantum type
Quantum computer is a new concept of computer that utilizes the quantum properties possessed by atoms for information processing. Quantum theory suggests that non-interacting atoms are in two states, called quantum superstates, at any given moment. Atoms rotate, i.e., they spin in both up and down directions at the same time, which coincides exactly with the 0 and 1 of an electronic computer. If a group of atoms are brought together, they do not perform linear operations as in an electronic computer, but perform all possible operations at the same time, e.g., a quantum computer processes data not step by step, but at the same time. Just 40 atoms computing together would be equivalent to the performance of a supercomputer today. Quantum computer to be in a quantum state of atoms as the central processor and memory, its computing speed may be 1 billion times faster than the Pentium 4 chip, like an information rocket, in a split second to search the entire Internet, you can easily crack any security code, hacking tasks a breeze, no wonder the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is particularly interested in it.
Photon
Photonic computer
Early 1990, the United States Bell Labs made the world's first photonic computer.
Photonic computer is a new type of computer that performs digital operations, logical operations, information storage and processing by optical signals. The basic component of the photonic computer is an integrated optical circuit, to have a laser, lens and nuclear mirror. As photons are faster than electrons, photonic computers can run as fast as one trillion times. It has tens of thousands of times the storage capacity of modern computers and can also recognize and synthesize language, graphics and gestures.
Many countries have invested heavily in photonic computer research. With the combination of modern optics with computer technology and microelectronics, photonic computers will become a universal tool for mankind in the near future.
Nano
Nanometer computer is a new type of high-performance computer developed with nanotechnology. Nanotube components, which range in size from a few to tens of nanometers, have a strong texture and are extremely conductive, and can be used to make computers instead of silicon chips. "A nanometer is a unit of measurement equal to 10 (-9) times a meter, which is about 10 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Nanotechnology is a new cutting-edge field of scientific research that developed rapidly from the early 1980s, with the ultimate goal that humans can directly manipulate individual atoms according to their own will to create products with specific functions. Nanotechnology is starting with microelectromechanical systems, where sensors, motors and various processors are placed on a silicon chip to form a system. Computer memory chips developed by applying nanotechnology are only a few hundred atoms in size, equivalent to one thousandth of the diameter of a human hair. Not only do nanocomputers consume almost no energy, but their performance is many times more powerful than today's computers.
Bio
Since the 1980s, bioengineers have devoted a lot of energy to the study of the human brain, neurons and receptors, with a view to developing a sixth-generation computer that can mimic the human brain's thinking, and that is low-consumption and high-efficiency -- a biocomputer. Computer chips made from proteins can store up to one billion times more than ordinary computers. The density of biological computer components is 1 million times higher than that of neurons in the brain, and the speed of transferring information is also 1 million times faster than that of human brain thinking. It is characterized by its ability to realize distributed associative memory． And it can simulate the learning function of human and animals to a certain extent. It is a kind of knowledge, learning, reasoning computer, with the ability to understand natural language, sound, text and images, and has the ability to speak, so that man and machine can use natural language direct dialogue, it can use the existing and constantly learning to knowledge, thinking, association, reasoning, and draw conclusions, and can solve complex problems, with the ability to pool, memory, retrieve relevant knowledge.