when was computers developed?
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in the 40's, but it wasn't until Al Gore invented the internet that they beacame REALLY useful.
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Wow, vague question!  It seems like you are trying to encompass the entire history of personal computers since they became readily available to the public.\n\nLet's see if I can hit some major ones, though I can't tell you the exact dates... You'll have to look them up\n\nApples came onto the market as the first widely popular and readily available computer in the 80s.  Everything was proprietary and software development was limited.\n\nIBM decided to enter the market with the PC, but did not make their products proprietary.  Bad for IBM's pocket, but major turning point for personal computing.  I think this was in the early 90s.  Apple stayed proprietary, the market flooded with IBM clones and software, which gave PCs more value to the consumer and therefore made them more popular.\n\nHardware has went through so many developments, there are too many to mention.  The major ones have been in processor architecture, allowing quantities and speed of calculations to multiply rapidly over the years.  In turn, other components have had to upgrade to be compatible, and new capabilities have allowed for the development of new kinds of peripherals (i.e. USB).\n\nIn software, the advent of Windows 3.1 with its Graphical User Interface was a huge factor in the growth in popularity of PCs (not to mention the flying toaster screensaver).  Every major revision of Windows since has brought about new developments, capabilities, and challenges for hardware and software makers alike.\n\nHope that helps!
458675
CPU\n\nAlso known as a processor or microprocessor the CPU was first developed by Intel in 1974 and is short for Central Processing Unit. The computer CPU is responsible for handling all instructions and calculation it receives from other hardware components in the computer and software programs running on the computer. Below is a graphic example of what the Intel Pentium processor looked like.
11491
Still Bill Gates\nhttp://www.forbes.com/2004/02/25/bill04land.html\n\nAnd, no, he didn't invent the computer.
1111870
Hello..Anyone from thr pals above are right about it. The PERSON WHO INVENTED COMPUTER FOR THE FIRST TIME . IT IS JOHN ATANASSOV. HE DIED ONLY A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO IN USA AND I HAVE THE PLEASURE TO KNOW ONE OF HIS GRANDCHILDREN!!
457688
It all depends. If they were asking you to explain what a computer is in 1900 it is not possible since I don;t think computers were available back then. If they are asking to explain present technology to someone from the 1900, I would start out with te basics of the different componets of a computer, eg. hard drive, mother board, power supply, RAM, disk drives, and etc. The reson for this is that you need to understand how a computer works before you can even get to software.
1012039
Computer, machine that performs tasks, such as calculations or electronic communication, under the control of a set of instructions called a program. Programs usually reside within the computer and are retrieved and processed by the computer’s electronics. The program results are stored or routed to output devices, such as video display monitors or printers. Computers perform a wide variety of activities reliably, accurately, and quickly.\n\nPeople use computers in many ways. In business, computers track inventories with bar codes and scanners, check the credit status of customers, and transfer funds electronically. In homes, tiny computers embedded in the electronic circuitry of most appliances control the indoor temperature, operate home security systems, tell the time, and turn videocassette recorders (VCRs) on and off. Computers in automobiles regulate the flow of fuel, thereby increasing gas mileage, and are used in anti-theft systems. Computers also entertain, creating digitized sound on stereo systems or computer-animated features from a digitally encoded laser disc. Computer programs, or applications, exist to aid every level of education, from programs that teach simple addition or sentence construction to programs that teach advanced calculus. Educators use computers to track grades and communicate with students; with computer-controlled projection units, they can add graphics, sound, and animation to their communications (see Computer-Aided Instruction). Computers are used extensively in scientific research to solve mathematical problems, investigate complicated data, or model systems that are too costly or impractical to build, such as testing the air flow around the next generation of aircraft. The military employs computers in sophisticated communications to encode and unscramble messages, and to keep track of personnel and supplies.\n\nThe physical computer and its components are known as hardware. Computer hardware includes the memory that stores data and program instructions; the central processing unit (CPU) that carries out program instructions; the input devices, such as a keyboard or mouse, that allow the user to communicate with the computer; the output devices, such as printers and video display monitors, that enable the computer to present information to the user; and buses (hardware lines or wires) that connect these and other computer components. The programs that run the computer are called software. Software generally is designed to perform a particular type of task—for example, to control the arm of a robot to weld a car’s body, to write a letter, to display and modify a photograph, or to direct the general operation of the computer.\n\nWhen a computer is turned on it searches for instructions in its memory. These instructions tell the computer how to start up. Usually, one of the first sets of these instructions is a special program called the operating system, which is the software that makes the computer work. It prompts the user (or other machines) for input and commands, reports the results of these commands and other operations, stores and manages data, and controls the sequence of the software and hardware actions. When the user requests that a program run, the operating system loads the program in the computer’s memory and runs the program. Popular operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh system (Mac OS), have graphical user interfaces (GUIs)—that use tiny pictures, or icons, to represent various files and commands. To access these files or commands, the user clicks the mouse on the icon or presses a combination of keys on the keyboard. Some operating systems allow the user to carry out these tasks via voice, touch, or other input methods.\n\nTo process information electronically, data are stored in a computer in the form of binary digits, or bits, each having two possible representations (0 or 1). If a second bit is added to a single bit of information, the
390942
Lots of stuff:\n\nColossus, the world's first totally electronic and digital computer was built\n\nFirst supersonic flight by Chuck Yeager on October 14, 1947\n\nENIAC invented (another computer)\n\nQuantum electrodynamics developed by Feynman, Dyson, Schwinger, and Tomonaga\n\nMathematics: cybernetics, game theory, cryptology were devised\n\nWorld War II ended in 1945\n\nUnited Nations established in 1945\n\nNATO founded in 1949\n\nThe Chinese Civil War ended\n\nThe Marshall Plan was implemented by the United States, giving billions of dollars in aid to reconstruct the war-devastated economies of Europe\n\nInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) was formed (debatable whether that's a good thing :>)\n\nWorld Bank was formed (same again)\n\nFrank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" was released (great movie)\n\nThe NBA was formed\n\nRock and roll and Rhythm and blues emerged, thus forming the genesis of all modern 'popular' music
453159
Charles Babbage invented the computing machine..\n\nIts was series is research done to get the current form of computers
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Here you go\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing\n\n///
87084
Charles Babbage is credited as the inventor of the first computer due to the invention of his difference engine machine in 1840.
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Babbage's machine was really a difference engine.\nThe fist electronic computer was build in Britain by the Post Office Research Branch in 1943.
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John Vincent Atanasoff.\n\nIn 1939 Atanasoff recruited a graduate student to assist him with his computing project and was introduced to Clifford Berry, a gifted electrical engineer with a similar background to himself. A few months later, in December they presented the first prototype of the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC).\n\nAlthough the ABC utilized a mechanical clock system, the computing was electronic and for the first time in computing, vacuum tubes were used. Data was entered via punch cards and the ABC used two rotating drums containing capacitors to hold the electrical charge for the dynamic memory.
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Hello,\n\nPlease see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing for a great article with many links to learning about the history of computing on my favorite site Wikipedia.org. \n\nIf you feel that I've answered your question please close your question so I can receive points for my answer. \n\nThanks,\n\nV
149454
I didn't get into the PC world until the mid-80's - besides, the first PC wasn't invented until 1981.\n\nThe first PC compatible I had was an AT&T 6300 with 640KB of memory and an 8086 processor.  It came with two floppy drives.  I upgraded it later, adding two 5 MB hard disks (that's five megabytes, not five gigabytes).  I'm thinking it cost around $2,600, with a Princton Graphics EGA monitor.  This was probably 1984.\n\nMy first PC compatible laptop was a Zenith 181, 640 KB of memory, 8088 chip and two floppies.  I remember that cost $2,999.99.  It won PC Magazine's Annual award for laptops in 1986.\n\nBoth of these were after much 1979, because the "personal computers" of that day were NOT PC compatible.  My previous machine was a TRS-80 Color Computer running "Color Disk Basic".  This was the machine I did all my college papers on between 1981 and 1982.  The machine was much less, around $400, but that did NOT include a monitor, or a floppy drive.
519846
History of computing\n\n    Main article: History of computing\n\nENIAC — a milestone in computing history\nEnlarge\nENIAC — a milestone in computing history\n\nOriginally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations, often with the aid of a mechanical calculating device. Examples of early calculating devices, the first ancestors of the computer, included the abacus and the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek device for calculating the movements of planets, dating from about 87 BC.[1] The end of the Middle Ages saw a reinvigoration of European mathematics and engineering, and Wilhelm Schickard's 1623 device was the first of a number of European engineers to construct a mechanical calculator.[2] The abacus has been noted as being an early computer, as it was like a calculator in the past. Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable computer as early as 1820, but due to a combination of the limits of the technology of the time, limited finance, and an inability to resist tinkering with his design, the device was never actually constructed in his lifetime. A number of technologies that would later prove useful in computing, such as the punch card and the vacuum tube had appeared by the end of the 19th century, and large-scale automated data processing using punch cards was performed by tabulating machines designed by Hermann Hollerith.\n\nDuring the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated, special-purpose analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. These became increasingly rare after the development of the programmable digital computer.\n\nA succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features of modern computers, such as the use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937)[3] and more flexible programmability. Defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is exceedingly difficult. Notable achievements include the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1937), a special-purpose machine that used valve-driven (vacuum tube) computation, binary numbers, and regenerative memory; the secret British Colossus computer (1944), which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of valves could be made reliable and reprogrammed electronically; the Harvard Mark I, a large-scale electromechanical computer with limited programmability (1944); the decimal-based American ENIAC (1946) — which was the first general purpose electronic computer, but originally had an inflexible architecture that meant reprogramming it essentially required it to be rewired; and Konrad Zuse's Z machines, with the electromechanical Z3 (1941) being the first working machine featuring automatic binary arithmetic and feasible programmability.\n\nThe team who developed ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible and elegant design, which has become known as the Von Neumann architecture (or "stored program architecture"), named for one of its principle designers. This stored program architecture became the basis for virtually all modern computers. A number of projects to develop computers based on the stored program architecture commenced in the mid to late-1940s; the first of these were completed in Britain. The first to be up and running was the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, but the EDSAC was perhaps the first practical version that was developed.\nThe Apple II, an early personal computer\nEnlarge\nThe Apple II, an early personal computer\n\nValve (tube) driven computer designs were in use throughout the 1950s, but were eventually replaced with transistor-based computers, which were smaller, faster, cheaper, and much more reliable, thus allowing
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who invented computer