History of Computer Science: Overview #1

In the early 1950s, it had began to establish computer science as an independent science. Nowadays, computer has been developed to a popularization machine that is superior performance, low price, and used almost without any professional helps. In just a few decades of development, the computer science gained a lot of success. For example, Digital Revolution, Information Era, and the Internet.

Calculators, calculating fixed numerical, such as abacus, had existed since ancient Greece. In 1623,  Wilhelm Schickard designed the first mechanical calculator in the world, but he did not complete. Then in 1642, Blaise Pascal designed and built the first mechanical calculator that can work, called Pascaline. Ada Lovelace assisted Charles Babbage to design Difference Engine in the Victorian era. About 1900, punched cards machines came out. But these machines are limited to only one complete single task. In 1940s, with the invention of the newer and more powerful computers, the term, computer, is used to indicate the temporal machines. The concept of computer was more clear. It was even used for mathematical calculations. The field of computer science also extended to the study of computers. From 1950s to the early 1960s, computer science became an independent discipline. In 1962, Purdue University established the first degree in computer science in the world. With the development of computer applications, many computing applications slowly became into the different areas of research in their own ways.


References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet