Identify as many enabling technologies as you can that were required before the computer could be constructed.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

In order to design a mechanical computer of the type envisaged by Babbage, you need chemistry and metallurgy to create the working parts (moving cog wheels and levers and linkages), and engineering technology to create the machines required to build the computer.

For an analog computer you need the development of the theory of electronics, the construction of active (amplifying) devices such as vacuum tubes and transistors, and the availability of components such are resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, etc., that are the basic elements of all analog circuits.

For the construction of electromechanical computers (i.e., those using relays) you need some of the same components as general analog circuits plus relays that require the construction techniques of the watch?maker (a relay has moving marts actuated by electromagnets).

For the construction of the electronic digital computer, you need the development of active devices (vacuum tubes or transistors) that can be used to make gates and bistable elements (flip?flops). Of course, to construct practical computers, you need to develop a wide range of technologies: electronics to process signals and transmit data from point?to?point over both short and long distances. You need the development of magnetic and optical technologies as these form the basis of many storage systems. You need the development of display technologies (the CRT, LCD, printer, and so on). Note that many of the technologies are ‘universal’ in the sense that using a technology in one field means that it can be applied in other areas; for example, the technology used to build a CPU is almost identical to that used to create an LCD display.

I asked this question because some introductory texts on computer architecture and organization seem to imply that the computer suddenly emerged. The typical discussion of computers goes something like ...abacus... Babbage analytical engine … ENIAC… PC.

In fact, rather a lot happened between Babbage and ENIAC. Much of the driving force behind the computer was the result of the development of the telegraph and telephone networks. These required the development of metallurgy (metals and wires, magnetics), chemical processing (insulators for wires), fabrication and manufacturing, battery technology, and the development of circuit theory and transmission lines (the behavior of signals in networks).

The design of mechanical and electromechanical switching networks for telephone exchanges gave rise to the body of theory that would later be used to create binary and logic circuits. The vacuum tubes that were used as amplifiers in switching circuits and memories required the development of complex chemistry (cathodes), highvacuum technology, and a theory of the behavior of electrons in electrostatic fields. Even cosmology played a role in the history of the computer because circuits developed to detect cosmic rays in high?altitude balloons were later adapted as pulse counters in the first generation of vacuum?tube?based computers. The development of the computer required a massive amount of progress across numerous fronts.