Howard Aiken (1900-1973).

He built the Mark I, the first working digital computer. A brilliant inventor, he was not a good fortune-teller. Said Aiken in 1947: "There will never be enough problems, enough work for more than. one or two of these computers."

Howard Aiken, a Step Toward Today

In 1944, Harvard University physicist Howard Aiken built the forerunner of today’s computer.

Aiken's Mark I was the first working digital binary computer. It used thousands of electrical switches that clicked on and off to compute data. When it was running, the switches sounded like the clicking of knitting needles.

Howard Aiken grew up poor in Indianapolis. He had to work his way through school, but he made it through Harvard.

Aiken, like Char1es Babbage, had a prickly personality. While his computer, the Mark I, was being built, he drove the workers' like slaves. For 16 years the Mark 1 was used to solve the complex equations needed to aim the U.S. Navy's big guns. But it was much slower than later computers,

Lesson 3 what is a computer?

Today computer is a machine with a complex network of electronic circuits that operate switches or magnetize tiny metal cores. The switches, like the cores, are capable of being in one or two possible states that is on and off; magnetized or demagnetized. The machine is capable of storing and manipulating numbers, letters, and characters.

The basic idea of the computer is that we can make the machine do what we want by inputting signals that turn certain switches on and turn others off, or that magnetizes or do not magnetize the cores.

The basic job of computers is the processing of information. For this reason, computers can be defined as devices which accept information in the form of instructions called a program and characters called data, perform mathematical and/or logical operations on the information, and then supply results of these operations. The program, or part of it, which tells the computers what to do and the data, which provide the information needed to solve the problem, are kept inside the computer in a place called memory.

Some of the most common methods of inputting information are to use punched cards, magnetic tape, disks, and terminals. The computer’s input device (which may be a card reader, tape drive, depending on the medium used in inputting information) reads the information into the computer.

For outputting information, two common devices are used – a printer which prints the new information on paper, or a display screen which shows the results on a TV-like screen.

Vocabulary notes

core – magház, mag

device – eszköz, egység

network – hálózat

magnetize – mágnesez

input –bemenet, adatok bevitele

output – kimenet, adatok kijelzése

character – jel, karakter, szimbólum

punched card – lyukkártya

card reader – lyukkártyaolvasó berendezés

switch – bekapcsolás

store – tárolás

medium – közvetítő közeg; közepes

tiny – apró

terminal – kapocs

circuit – áramkör