COMPUTER INVENTIONS

WHO INVENTED PASCAL PROGRAM?

Pascal is a programming language that was designed in the late 1960’s. In 1970 it was published by Niklaus Wirth and uses structured programming and data structuring. Niklaus Wirth based Pascal on ALGOL programming language and was named for the great Mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal was designed to teach students structured programming for the computing needs and the language is now widely used in variations for designing PC games, research projects and embedded systems. The PASCAL compiler was designed in Zurich and was meant for the CDC 6000 series mainframe computer family. PASCAL is still widely used since it allows nested procedure definitions. It is also an extremely simple language and has a coherent syntax. The definitions are or the syntax is quite similar to the procedure or the function that the program is supposed to execute.

Pascal has also been used in the early year for the development of Apple Lisa and in the early years of MAC. Object PASCAL is still being used in development of many Windows applications such as Skype.  Even though in its most traditional form when it was written, PASCAL is more a procedural language and is based on ALGOL language. Even then it incorporates a range of many data structuring facilities and procedures that are not found in the ALGOL language.

WHO INVENTED FLOPPY DISK?

The first floppy disk was invented by a team of researchers at IBM in the year 1971. The team was headed by Alan Shugart and the main designer in the team was David Noble. The professionals at IBM wanted to create a device which could store information for the users as backup for their software programmes and other files. These floppy disks were known as memory disks in the beginning. The first floppy disk was 8” in diameter and was made of plastic material and had magnetic iron oxide. These floppy disks were a great success. Later the disk faced some limitations due to its big size and non- reliability over a longer period. Many companies started on improving the original floppy.

Shugart Associates started the production of 51/4” disks in the year 1976. And it took just two years for nine more companies to start the production for the same.

Soon the new developed disk also fell into the line of the obsolete ones and its place was taken by 31/2” of disks produced by Sony in mid 1980s. The disk was smaller in size but could hold more of data.

The computers in the market of 1980s had both 51/4” and 31/2” disk drives but in 1990s the 51/4” lost its market and a small, handy 31/2” captured it all. The new disks were made stronger and did not allowed dust to accumulate on it. But by mid 1990s floppy disk lost all its market to the new software.

WHO INVENTED GOOGLE?

The most popular search engine was invented by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in September, 1998. They named it Google, after Googol which means number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name itself said about the amount of information that the search engine stored. It was in 1995 that Sergey Brin, a Soviet born computer scientist and Larry Page, an American computer scientist met at Stanford University as computer science graduates. By January’ 96 both started writing a program on a search engine Backrub which had the quality of back link analysis. After the success of this joint venture, they began their work at Google. They started with making of a server using obsolete, cheap and used PC’s. They spent all their money, took credits and looked for cheap hardware. They failed in finding finance to get Google licensed.

After a lot of improvement, when the demo for the same was given to Andy Bechtolsheim, the co founder of Sun Microsystems, he at once wrote a cheque for $ 1,00,000. In the same year Google opened its office in Menlo Park, California and Google.com was answering 10,000 queries everyday. In 2000 Google was released in ten more languages.

Amazing and interesting facts about Google say that people all round the globe send search requests to Google everyday, it got its name by spelling mistake from Googol to Google, it has the largest network of translators in the world, the homepage of Google is available in 88 languages and Google shares 33% of global English- language searches

WHO INVENTED COMPUTER JUMP DRIVE?

Dov Moran invented the computer jump drive in 1998. This seems to be the joint venture of M-systems, a firm for which Dov was working and that of Dov Moran. The first flash drive was created in Europe and it was named Disgo. Though it was a quite different device from what we use today. The computer jump drive commonly known as USB flash drive, the form in which we use it today was invented by an Electrical control engineering student of Malaysia, named Pua Khein Seng with a group of engineers who were in business with him. As he was short of money, Pua Khein Seng conveyed his idea of USB to Toshiba. Toshiba became the largest shareholder in the jump drive production.

Many more companies like Trek Technology, M-systems, and Netac started with the production of thumb drive originated by Seng. These companies tried to get patents for their designs. IBM also tried producing and selling USB flash drive in the year 2000.

The USB flash drive has some advantages as well as disadvantages. The storage contents are safe from dust and scratches, the amount of storage space is huge, facilitates easy transportation and the data transfer is easy. The disadvantages of device are that data might get lost, overwriting of data is possible and the device can be lost, stolen or misplaced.

WHO INVENTED MOUSE?

The first computer mouse called prototype was invented in 1963 by Dr. Douglas  C Engelbart. His invention took place at Stanford Research Institute with the help of his colleague, Bill English. This changed the computer world from a complex machine to a user- friendly machine. The mouse got its name so because of the long wire attached to its rear part which gave it the appearance of the common mouse. The original mouse was made of wood, with two metal wheels and a button. The mouse was first made public in 1968 in the Fall Joint Computer Conference. The mouse got patented on November 17,1970. The mouse was first used in 1973. The original mouse has undergone series of changes to get its current form. The mouse is so common now that it is seen attached to all systems.

Douglas had his own lab at Augmentation Research Center, Stanford Research Institute. He worked hard for almost a time span of 20years creating hypermedia groupware system NLS which included computer mouse and windows too. In 1997, Douglas Engelbart was awarded Lemelson- Mit prize of $ 5,00,000 for his inventions and innovations. This was the world’s largest prize.  His name found place in the National Inventors Hall Of Fame in the year 1998. Presently, Douglas Engelbart is working as the director of his own company Bootstrap Institute in Fremont, California. The company promotes the concept of Collective IQ.

WHO INVENTED COMPUTER?

In the year 1786 the “difference engine” was invented by J.H. Muller. It could not make its place and conquer the market and thus in 1822 Charles Babbage, famous as “the father of the computer” reinvented it. In the history of computers this has been considered as zero generation of computers because analytical computers and difference engine weighed in tons. Charles Babbage was the son of a businessman. He studied in Helmond Academy in Baker Street. Charles was very fond of mathematics and for further studies he went to Cambridge. He then joined Peterhouse Cambridge where he studied Computer Science and Analytical Philosophy.

In the beginning, computers were used for calculating mathematical tables. This computing function gave them the name of computers. As Charles had studied computer science and was a profound mathematician he thought of designing a machine to overcome human errors. He started working upon a machine that could take input, work upon it and give flawless output. The difference engine he developed calculated the finite difference without multiplying and dividing. Due to heavy weight, huge size and complex design Charles came up with improved design as difference engine 2. But this again was not a success. He finally decided to work on complex and efficient machines which were called analytical engines. He worked on many designs for the purpose but the design which he finalized was implemented in the year 1989. He believed that paying high to highly skilled people saved cost and it really worked.