Essay/Term paper: The computer

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Internet

The Computer

This report is about the impact that the personal computer has made during the
past 10 years on the the community. It is a report that includes detailed
information about the personal computer and the way it has worked its way into a
lot of peoples everyday lives. It includes information about the Internet and
how it has shaped peoples life from just a hobby and into an obsession. It
includes detailed information about its history, especially the time in which it
was first developed. There is information about future possibilities for the
computer about who it could be the future and destroy the future. There is a
description on how it is developed and an in-depth look at how it works.

A personal computer is a machine that lets you do do just about everything you
could think of. You can do some basic word-processing and spreadsheets as well
as 'Surf the Internet'. You can play the latest computer games by yourself as
well as against someone from across the other side of the world. It can store
databases which could contain information that is kept by police for easier
records or you could just use it for your own family history. The basic
structure of a computer is a keyboard, a moniter, a and case which holds all the
componets to make a computer run like a Hard drive, a Motherboard, and a Video
card. There are many other additions you can make to this such as a Modem, a
Joystick, and a Mouse.

The personal computer was developed during the year 1945 by the Americans to
help them decode enemy secret codes during the Second World War. At this time
the computers were huge and only used by governments because they were as big as
room. This was because the main thing they used were vacuum valves which made
the computer enormous. They also never had anything to hold any memory so they
couldn't actually be classed as a true computer. The introduction of a way to
store a file was brought around in the year 1954.

The computer did not have a big impact on the community until about the year
1985 Commodore released a gange of computers called the Commodore 64 and also
another Commodore computer called the Vic 20 which was released in the year 1982.
When Intel saw the Commodore 64's success it released its brand new 386
processor in the year 1985. Though the 386 was easily the better and faster
processor the Commodore 64 seemed to be the computer getting all the attention
because of it's lower prices so therefore it appealed to a much wider group of
people. The 386 was only in the price range of the mega-rich and agencies. The
effect of the Commodore 64 was enormous because it seemed to turn people away
from throwing away their money on Arcade games such as Pac-man and Pong when
they could be playing them in the conveiniance of their own homes and without
leaving a dent in the change pocket. This marked the fall of arcade and the rise
of the computer. Arcade companies such as Namco were forced to make computer
games from then if they were to make any money.

The most specific event to help the rise of the home computer was the invention
of the transistor. Before the transistor the information could only travel
through a vacuum valve. Then the transistor came along and because of its size
it reduced the size of a computer enormously. With the transistor being smaller
they could fit more into a small space and with the more transistors ther was
more activity within them which in turn made them faster. Another worthy event
was in the year 1954 when the first writable disk was invented. It was a great
achievment because instead of just being able to work out sums and display them
they were able to store some of the current information for future reference.
This way the computer didn't have to do so much work and therefore it made them
evn quicker at doing sums and cracking codes.