Computer History

Many people believe that the word "computer" has been created recently to name machines which are nowadays extremely important in nearly all human activities like heath, banking and the small gadgets like smartphones.

However, it has a long history. The first use of the word "computer" was recorded in 1613. In that time it was used to refer a person who carried out calculations (or computations) and the word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century.

Computers, in the middle of 20th century, were big costly machines which used to consume a lot of energy, sometimes needing an entire building to be installed. They had limited resources, were not simple to operate and be programmed.

In the above video, the journalist interview a researcher that shows a new revolutionary technology (for the time) which nowadays is present in all modern operating systems: the multi-task technology. Technically, he shows the process schedulling using Time-sharing. One processor executes various processes giving the ilusion that they are being executed at the same time. In reality, the processes are executed little by little, being changed rapidly by the CPU in short time intervals.

It is also possible to notice that the computer in the video occupies a large room and is operated by terminals that resemble automated typewriters. A huge size compared to the today's microcomputers. Having this in mind, is incredible the engineering that have been put to create the computers present in the early space shuttles from 60s and 70s.

To preserve the history of this young technology (and science) back in 1999 was created the computer Computer History Museum. Dedicated to the preservation of various computer artifacts created around the world --- encompassing computer hardware, ephemera, photographs, moving images, documents and software --- nowadays is located at Mountain View, California.

The Computer History Museum also have a Youtube channel with old videos about computing, like the one which illustrates this post.

PS: Thanks to Fergo for the link!