The Story of the Computer

Paper Summary:

This paper follows the advancement of the computer from Babbage's mass-produced calculator in 1820, through the ground-breaking inventions of the 1950s and 1960s. During these two decades alone, programming was transformed by the concept of compiling, the outcome of a presidential election was predicted for the first time by a computer, and IBM launched its first commercially successful computer, the 701. It looks at how this period also produced the mechanical encoder, Enigma; electronic computers ENIAC-Mark I and UNIVAC; and the operating system, UNIX.

From the Paper:

"The Enigma, a complex mechanical encoder, was used by the Germans who believed the codes to be completely unbreakable. Several people involved brainstormed to come up with de-coding machines to handle the problem, but none were technically feasible enough to build.
First in Poland, and later in Great Britain and the United States, the Enigma code was broken. Information gained by this shortened World War II. To break the code, the British built the Colossus Mark I. The existence of this machine was a closely guarded secret of the British Government until 1970. The United States Navy, aided to some extent by the British, built a machine capable of breaking not only the German code but the Japanese code as well."

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