CHM Revolution

First Steps on the Path to Computers Banks calculating interest. Kids dividing up cookies. Engineers designing bridges. We make calculations every day. And for as long as we’ve juggled numbers greater than our fingers and toes, we’ve…

From Math to Data People used calculators to manipulate numbers. But how do you make machines that also manipulate words or ideas? Punched cards, a mainstay of early office automation and computing, helped launch the transition from …

Analog and Digital: Different Ways to Measure and Model the World Our world is a symphony of infinite variations. Long before digital computers existed, engineers built models to simulate those real world nuances. Analog computers …

Computation Becomes Electronic World War II acted as midwife to the birth of the modern electronic computer. Unprecedented military demands for calculations—and hefty wartime budgets—spurred innovation. Early electronic computers were…

The First Computer Companies The stored-program electronic computer represented a breakthrough. But if you wanted one, you had to build it yourself. There were no commercial manufacturers. As interest grew, both startups and existing …

Reacting to the Real World Taking a census? You can wait while computers crunch the numbers. Braking your car? Guiding a missile? Running an assembly line? Waiting is not recommended. Time matters. Real-time computing responds to events …

The Backbone of Big Business With technology, what you can do influences what you want to do—which gradually expands what you can do. Businesses in the 1950s increasingly recognized computers’ broad potential. They demanded flexible,…

How Computers Remember Computers are master jugglers, multitasking as we play music, solve equations, surf the web, and write novels. They also have become vast, searchable libraries of everything from banking records and encyclopedias to …

Telling Computers What to Do A computer is a versatile machine. It can do nearly anything—but does nothing until instructed by software. Creating the programs our civilization now depends on involves science, engineering, and craft. …

The Fastest Brains for the Biggest Problems Super is relative. Every era has supercomputers, but the definition shifts as technology advances. Today’s supercomputers may be tomorrow’s PCs. Supercomputers tackle the most …

Less is More: Smaller, Simpler, Cheaper This new kind of computer, smaller and simpler than mainframes, was designed to interact directly with users and the outside world. A flexible, inexpensive tool, it brought computers within the reach…

How Digital Computers Compute All digital computers work on the same principle: manipulating on/off signals to implement logic functions. There have been many ways to generate those on/off signals, from mechanical devices to …

Trying to Make Computers Human Mechanical servants. Automated employees. We’ve long imagined machines able to replicate human thought and action. Computers provide the sophistication needed for human-like behavior. But getting machines…

Human-Computer Interaction Computers have always been good at calculations and data processing. But to evolve from specialized devices to a universal tool required more efficient ways to "talk" to people. Early computers communicated …

Computers & Creativity Computers were originally devised to calculate. But they are increasingly used to create. Computers have grown into a powerful medium for enjoying, sharing, and creating art, music, and film. We are also continually…

Playing on Computers To find the earliest computer games, find the earliest computers. Games have always been part of computing. Some were created for tests or demonstrations. Others merely reflect that computer pioneers were human—and …

Computers for Everyone Computers evolved primarily for military, scientific, government, and corporate users with substantial needs...and substantial budgets. They populated labs, universities, and big companies. Homes? Small businesses? …

Taking it with You Early computers were so heavy that the floor below sometimes needed reinforcing. Today, computers slip into purses or pockets and are misplaced as easily as keys. Miniaturization and falling costs made it possible to …

Connecting Computers Networking has transformed computers from stand-alone data-crunchers into the foundation of an unprecedented global community. Networking rests on a simple concept: getting computers to communicate with each other.…

Connecting People Networks connect computers to each other. But how do people use those connections? Information systems like the Web let us share content such as text, pictures, or music. The Web running over the Internet has become our …