From the history of computer

The educated man of 200 years ago did not need to know anything about science. The educated man of 25 — 30 years ago did not need to know anything about computers. But the educated man of today needs to have some significant knowledge of science and a little significant knowledge about computers.

The computer is no doubt the most amazing achieve­ment of mankind. It is a date storage system created by man. A human tells the machine what to do, when to do it and how it should be done.

The word computer comes from a Latin word which means to count.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago there were no such things as computers. Knotted ropes, marks in clay, the abacus are all methods of keeping track of numbers.

In 1833 an English inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage, professor of Cambridge University designed the first computer. The mathematical programme for his ma­chine had been composed by Lord Byron's daughter.

The first programmer computer which operated success­fully was built in 1939 by H. H. Aiken, professor of Harward University.

In our country the first electronic digital computer MACM was constructed by the Ukrainian Academician S. O. Lebedev in 1950.

Such computers as BESM, Minsk, Ural, Razdan-3, M-20, M-220, Nairi-3, Strela, Dniepr were created in our country.

Nowadays computers greatly increase man's thinking capabilities of planning, analyzing, computing and con­trolling. Hundreds of computers are already in daily use. They penetrate almost into all spheres of our modern so­ciety, from nuclear energy production and missile design to the processing of bank checks, weather forecasting, manufacturing, research and medical diagnoses.

There are three kinds of computers: digital, analogue and hybrid. An analogue computer computes by using physi­cal analogue of numerical measurements. A digital com­puter computes by using numbers or digits. A hybrid com­puter is a machine which combines some of the properties of digital and analogue computers.

Invention of electronic computers is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The significance of it can be compared with the invention of the steam-engine and the utilization of atomic energy.