The Evolution of computers

Necessity is the mother of invention. The saying holds true for computers also, because computers were invented because of man’s search for fast and accurate calculating devices.

The first mechanical adding machine was invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642.Later, in the year 1671; Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz of Germany invented the first calculator for multiplication. Keyboard machines originated in the United States around 1880 and are extensively used even today. Around this period only, Herman Hollerith came up with the concept of punched cards, which were extensively used as input medium in computers even in late 1970s, Business machines and calculators made their appearance in Europe and America towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Charles Babbage, a nineteenth century Professor at Cambridge University, is considered the faster of modern digital computers. During his period, mathematical and statistical tables were prepared by a group of clerks. Even the utmost care and precautions could not eliminate human errors. Babbage had to spend several hours checking these tables. Soon he became dissatisfied and exasperated with this type of monotonous job. The result was that he started thinking to build a machine, which could compute tables guaranteed to be error-free. In this process, Babbage designed a “Difference Engine “in the year 1822, which could produce reliable tables. In 1842, Babbage came out with his new idea of Analytical Engine, Which was intended to be completely automatic. It was to be capable of performing the basic arithmetic functions for any mathematical problem, and it was to do so at an average speed of 60 additions per minute. Unfortunately, he was unable to produce a working model of this machine, because the precision engineering required to manufacture the machine was not available during that period. However, his efforts established a number of principles, which have been shown to be fundamental to the design of any digital computer. In order to have better idea of the evolution of computers, let us now briefly discuss about some of the well-known early computers. These are as follows:

1.       The Mark 1st Computer (1937-44. Also known as Automatic Sequence Controlled calculator, this was the first fully automatic calculating machine designed by Howard A. Aiken of Harvard University, in collaboration with IBM (International Business Machines).Corporation .Its design was based on the techniques already developed for punched card machinery. It was an electro-mechanical device, since both mechanical and electronic components were used in its design.

Although this machine proved to be extremely reliable, It was very complex in design and huge in seize. It used over 3000 electrically actuated switches to control its operations, and was approximately 50 feet long and 9 feet high. It was capable of performing five basic arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and table reference. A number as big 23 decimal digits could be used in this machine. It took approximately 0.3 second to add two numbers and 4.5 seconds for multiplication of two members. Hence, the machine was very slow as compared to today’s computers.

2.       The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1939-42). This electronic machine was developed by Dr.John Atanasoff to solve certain mathematical equations. It was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computers, Or ABC,after its inventor’s name and his assistant, Clifford Berry. It used 45 vacuum tubes for internal logic and capacitors for storage.

3.       The ENIC (1943-46). The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) was the first all electronic computer. It was constructed at the Moore School of Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A by a design team led by Professor J.Presper Eckert and John Mauchly.

ENIC was developed because of military need, and was used for many years to solve ballistic problems, It took up the wall space in a 20*40 square feet room and used 18,000 vacuum tubes, The addition of two numbers was achieved in 200 microseconds, and multiplication in 2000 microseconds.

4.       The EDVAC (1946-56). A major drawback of ENIAC was that its program was wired on boards, which made it difficult to change the programs. This problem was later overcome by the “stored program” concept introduced by Dr.John Von Neumann. The basic idea behind this concept is that a sequence of instructions, as well as data, can be stored in the memory of the computers, for automatically directing the flow of operations. This feature considerably influenced the development of modern digital computers because of the ease with which different programs can be loaded and executed on the same computer. Due to this feature, we often refer to modern digital computers as stored program digital computers. The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) was designed on stored both instructions and data in the binary form (a system that uses only two digits -0 & 1 to represent all characters), instead of the decimal numbers or human readable words.

5.       The EDSAC (1947-49). Almost simultaneously with EDVAC of U.S.A, the Bruisers developed the Electronic Deley Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). The machine executed its first program in May 1949.In this machine, addition operation was accomplished in 1500 microseconds, and multiplication operation in 400 microseconds. The machine was developed by a group of scientists, head by Professor Maurice Wilikes, at the Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory.

6.       The UNIVAC 1^st (1951). The Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was the first digital computer, which was not “one of kind”. Many UNIVAC machines were produced, the first of which was installed in the Census Bureau in 1951 and was used continuously for 10 years. The first business use of a computer, a UNIVAC 1^st, was by General Electric Corporation in 1954.

In 1952, the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation introduced the 701 commercial computers. In rapid succession, improved models of the UNIVAC 1^st and other 700-series machines were introduced. In 1053, IBM produced the IBM-650, and over 1000 of these computers.

The commercially available digital computers, which could be used for business and scientific applications, had arrived.

Toshiba is a big brand and its parts are perfect choice

Toshiba offers a wide variety of laptops. In the growing scenario of technology, everyday new ranges of laptops are available in the market. It was time when only the rich area of the society was able to purchase the laptops. Nowadays the time has changed; there are laptops available which are able to suit everyone’s requirements. Everyone can fulfill his desire of buying the laptop which can fit into his pocket. There are various stores available in the markets which provide the laptop repair and spares.

 The laptops normally provide the reliable services to the customer but at times of failure the hardware needs to be changed immediately. Looking for hardware services is a tedious task. The hardware services are to be very reliable because if the parts are not able to fulfill the compatibility of the laptop, the laptop may even get damaged. In order to ensure the proper working of the laptop, the customer should ensure that he use the original and reliable laptop parts.

There are numerous service centers available in the market which can provide the services for the laptop repair. The customer should ensure that the service center can provide the services throughout the day. The failure can happen anytime and it is very crucial to get the reforms done early. The laptop can only function well if only it is made compatible with the suitable laptop parts and services. The services should be up to the mark in order to ensure the continuous working of the laptop.
Sometimes the laptop requires regular checking as well to ensure the updating of the software. The updated software could only ensure the continuous and early functioning of the laptop. There are numerous websites available on the internet which can provide the laptops repair and spare services. Sometimes the attractive looking websites may not be able to fulfill the customer’s needs. These websites are sometimes a part of the trap which can make false promises to the user. The requirement and the company details should always be checked before finalizing any deal with the company. The customer should make a smart decision prior to make any decision

Computer Analog and Digital Audio

Audio- Sound

Computer audio deals with synthesizing, recording, and playback of audio or sound with the aid of a computer. Audio is another very important component of multimedia, because in many cases sound can substantially reinforce our understanding of information presented in other ways, and in some cases sound is the only way to provide the desired information.
 For example, in the multimedia application meant for educating small children voice explanation can be added to the animation clip for describing what is being shown, and pointing out what to look for that makes a house’s gallop different from a horse’s walk. Similarly, an animation clip can show the horse neighing and neighing sound can be added to effectively convey the type of sound horses make. Note that, it is nearly impossible to provide an accurate description of a horse’ neigh, a lion’s roar, or a bird’s chirp using text, and graphics is of no help in these castles. Hence, sound is the only medium that can accurately provide such information.

Analog and Digital Audio

Information can be represented as analog signals or digital signals. Analog signals exhibit a continuous tone of smooth fluctuations, while digital signals are composed of discrete values represented by numbers. The transformation between analog and digital signals is achieved by A/D (Analog-to-Digital) conversion and D/A (Digital-to-Analog) conversion. A/D conversion transforms an analog input(such as voltage) into a series of numeric representation by digitization’s/A conversion is the reverse process, which transform a sequence of discrete numbers back into continuous analog signal.
Audio information travels in natural medium in the form of sound waves, which are analog in nature. For the computer to be able to understand audio information, sound waves must be converted from analog to digital form. Transducer is a device capable of changing signal from one form to another. For example, microphone is an example of a transducer, which converts sound waves into electrical signals. Conversely, loudspeaker is an example of a transducer, which converts electrical signal into sound waves.

Software Requirements for Animation

The following software capabilities are highly desirable in a multimedia computer system with animation facility:

1. Animation creation software: - It allows the user to create animation sequences from scratch by using a mouse and various simple objects, such as lines, circles and polygons, with various supporting colors. For example, an animation sequence to illustrate bouncing of a ball can be created as follows-







• Select a circle object and fill it with red color.



• Then start the recorder of the animation creation software.



• Then select the colored circle and drag it around the screen by using a mouse, recording several positions for it on the screen (each time you release the mouse button, you record the object’s position on the screen.



• Finally, stop the recorder and use save command to save the animation.






2. Screen capture software: - It is used to capture the displays of a computer screen as graphic images, which can be used in animation.



3. Animation clips: - This is a library of animation clips from which one can select and directly import an animation clip and use it in a multimedia application, saving the time and effort, which might otherwise be required to create a similar animation clip. This is also useful. if one does not have an animation creation software. An animation clips library often provides the facility to add a new animation clip or delete an existing animation clip from the library.



4. Animation file importing: - The task of creating a multimedia application incorporating animation can often be greatly simplified, if the application software can import animation files in some standard formats. Common animation file formats include.FLI and FLC.



5. Software support for high resolution: - If the animation sequences of a multimedia application are made up of very high quality images, it is important to have not only the necessary hardware, but also software support for displaying high resolution images, which have many colors to maintain the high quality of animation display.



6. Recording and playback capability: - It allows the user to control the recording and display of an animation sequence. For example, it provides the user with options to ‘pause’ and ‘replay’ the animation sequence.



7. Transition effects: - Animation can be even more interesting, if it is enhanced with transition effects, such as fade-in and fade-out, layering, zooming and rotation of objects.


8. For more Hardware Requirements click here

Hardware Requirements for Animation

Computer animation generally involves the following hardware devices.

1. Image generation tools and devices, such as scanners, digital cameras, and video capture board interfaced to some standard video source, like video camera or video cassette recorder (VCR), are used to generate images to be used in animation.



2. Computer monitors with image display capability is the minimum requirement for outputting (displaying) animation .In addition, multimedia computer systems capable for handling animation also require a graphics accelerator board, which not only controls the resolution and number of colors of display, but also speeds up the refresh rate. Refresh rate is the time taken to paint the computer screen with a new image frame, replacing the previous images frame. Increased speed, due to the use of graphics accelerator board, smoothes out the movement (avoids flickering of animation sequences) because subsequent frames, which make up the animation can be displayed quicker.

For Software Reuirements for animation click here

What is animation

Computer animation deals with the generation, sequencing, and display of a set of images (called frames) to create an effect of visual change or motion, similar to a movie film (video).
Animation is an important component of multimedia, because just as a picture is a powerful way to illustrate information, a small animation clip is even more powerful and useful for illustrating concepts, which involve movement. For Example, in the multimedia application meant for educating small children an animation clip will be very effective in illustrating the difference in movement of a horse during a gallop versus a walk. Without animation, it will be very difficult to explain such concepts by using only still images and text. Similarly, in a multimedia application meant for teaching swimming, the proper way to swing hands for swimming can be more effectively illustrated with an animation as compared to images and textual description.
Animation is often confused with video may be because both deal with the display of a sequence of images to generate an effect of motion. However, animation is commonly used in those instances where videography is not possible, or animation can better illustrate the concept than video. For example, collision between two stars, or movement of planets around sun, cannot be video graphed, and hence, can be best illustrated with the help of an animation clip. Similarly, flow of blood in our arteries and veins, and pumping of blood by our heart can be best illustrated with the help of animation clip. Animation is also very commonly used in advertisements, cartoon films, video games, and virtual reality applications. Virtual reality is relatively new computer technology, using which, the user can put on a pair of goggles and a glove and tour a three-dimensional world that exists only in the computer, but appears realistic to the user.
Animation deals with displaying a sequence of images at a reasonable speed to create an impression of movement. For a jerk-free full motion animation,25 to 30 frames have to be displayed per second.
Hardware Requirements for animation.
Software Requirements for animation .

Multimedia components

Multimedia components

TEXT

Alphanumeric characters are used to present information in the text form. Computers are widely used for text processing.

Hardware Requirements for Text

Text processing, with the use of multimedia computers, generally involves the following hardware devices.1. Keyboards are most commonly used to input text data.2. OCRs (Optical Recognizers) are used for direct input of printed text to computers.3. Computer screens are used to display text information.4. Printers are most commonly used to output text in hard copy form.

Software Requirements for Text

The following text processing capabilities are highly desirable in a multimedia computer system for better presentation and use for textual information.
Text editing. Text editors and word processing packages are used to generate, edit and properly layout a text document.

Text style.

Presentation of text information can be made more effective by using text of various sizes, fonts and styles .For example ,newspapers use a good combination of all these styles to better highlights more important news than less important ones. Similarly ,in a book like the one you are now reading, a combination of various text styles are used to put more emphasis on certain words or phrases than the remaining text.

Text searching.

Usage of text information can be greatly enhanced by text searching features. This feature allows the users to enter a word or phrase, and the computer quickly finds and displays that part of the text where the world or phrase appears in the textual information, with the world or phrase highlighted.

Hypertext.

Both presentation and use of textual information can be greatly enhanced by using hypertext feature. This feature provides great flexibility of structuring and accessing computer based text information. It generalizes the concepts of “footnote” and “cross reference” of traditional anchor (a word or phrase linked to another document) within documents. An anchor is often called a “hotword”. This means, if the user wants more information about a particular hotword, he/she can select that hotword and open window with additional text explaining that word or phrase.

Text importing and exporting.

The task of creating a textual document can often be greatly simplified, if the document preparation software has text-importing feature. This is because some of the text you want to incorporate in your document may already exist as a file created by a word processor or a database file. The file can be simply imported into the new documents at the desired location, instead of retyping the entire text again. If the imported file is large, it will result in enormous saving of time and effort required to prepare the new documents. Similarly, text exporting feature is very useful in allowing other package to use an existing documents. For what is multimedia click here