From the history of the computer

The introduction of agriculture revolutionized ancient man's social, economic, and cultural potential. This was the first great step in the evolution of civilization. The more recent Industrial Revolution vastly increasing man's productive capabilities was the next great step and brought forth our present highly mechanized economic and interdependent social civilization.

Nowadays we have another new kind of revolution based on machines that greatly increase man's thinking capabilities of planning, analyzing, computing, and controlling. Hundreds of millions of computers are already in daily use penetrating almost all spheres of our modern society, from nuclear energy production and missile design to the processing of bank checks and medical diagnoses.

The development of mechanical calculating machines made the digital computers necessary. An ordinary arithmometer and a desk key calculator have given rise to electronic digital computers. Digital computers came into being in the first half of the 17th century. Many outstanding Russian and foreign mathematicians of that time created mechanical calculating devices.

The famous Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov compiled a lot of calculating tables and several computing devices concerning the different fields of science and engineering.

In 1874 the Russian engineer V.T. Odner invented a special counter wheel named after him the Odner's wheel which is used in modern arithmometers and calculators.

P. L. Chebyshev, academician, made a valuable contribution to the field of computing machines. He is known to have many good ideas in mathematics, some of which have been named after him. For example, the Chebyshev's polynomials play a unique role in the field of orthogonal functions. In 1878 he constructed the original computing machine which was exhibited in Paris. In 1882 P. L. Chebyshev invented an arithmometer performing automatically multiplication and division. The principle of automation put into this computing machine is still widely used all over the world when developing the most modern computers.

In 1884 Russia began to manufacture computing machines. In the period of World War I the output of computing machines ceased and was resumed only in the years of the Soviet Power.

At the end of the 1930s computing engineering began the new era. Electronic computers operating at high speed appeared, with electronic devices and units being applied.

The rapid advance of computers followed the success achieved by electronics. There appeared a possibility to solve complex mathematical problems within unusually short time. The modern computing engineering enables to do the amount of calculations and researches within a week which would have required years of laborious work of large groups of people before.

In Russia the first electronic digital computer was developed by S.A. Lebedev in 1950. Then in 1953 the BESM (the large-size electronic computing machine) was designed by the Academy of Sciences. By means of the BESM, the system of 800 unknown values was solved in 20 hours. During the course of computation about 250 million operations were performed. A human being could solve such a problem in 300 years of continuous work.

The BESM was followed by a number of types of large-, medium-, and small-size general and special purpose computers such as Arrow, Ural-1, Ural-2, Minsk-1, etc. It was the first generation computers constructed on electronic tubes.

The second generation computers were solid-state large-powered machines. They were BESM-4, BESM-6, Minsk-22M, and Minsk-32, Ural-14, Ural-16, Razdan-3, M-220 and others.

Nowadays more contemporary computers made on the integrated circuits are commercially available. They are the computers of the third and fourth generations. Among them there are such machines as Nairi-3 made on integrated hybrid microcircuits, the Unified System (ES) of electronic computers 1022, 1033, 1045, 1055, 1066, etc., made on integrated circuits with the application of advanced designing-technological achievements.

Nairi-4 is the representative of the fourth generation the speed of which has been increased by 5 times as compared with the speed of the third-generation computers thanks to using the multilayer printed circuits. The computers of the fourth generation are based on LSI circuits containing tens and hundreds of thousands of active electronic devices in tiny elements. Researches are also being done on computers based on superconducting devices.

A major advance in the development of computer technology was the creation of microprocessors and microcomputers. The tiny computing devices are able to control complex operations. Our industry has already started mass production of microprocessors and microcomputers which will be soon of vital help to man everywhere.

The fifth-generation computers are expected to appear by the turn of the century. They will be based on VLSI and SLSI technologies, optical fibers, videodisks, and artificial intelligence techniques will be incorporated into them.

The invention of electronic computers is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The significance of it can be compared with the invention of the steam-engine at the end of the 18th century and the utilization of atomic energy.

Notes:

a special counter wheel – специальное счетное колесико

which would have required years of laborious work of large groups of people before – которые потребовали бы раньше годы трудоемкой работы большой группы людей

general and special purpose computers – универсальные и специализированные компьютеры

artificial intelligence – искусственный интеллект