10 Developments That Laid Foundation Of Modern Computing

The computing industry has witnessed an enormous change since its inception, which makes its history quite fascinating. The computers we have today have undergone a complex transformation from giant machines to small devices that can be operated and understood by common folks despite their age. This is the resultant of several researchers whose efforts have made the the transformation possible. So, let’s go down the memory lane and get to know about the developments because of which we have reached the speed, sophistication and accuracy of modern computing. Let’s begin!

WWW

Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave this amazing gift to humanity on November 12, 1990, and wrote the outline of something that is known as World Wide Web aka WWW today. Nobody expected the impact of this unless its power was unleashed. Today, it is the greatest source of information, media and other form of entertainment.

Source: youtube.com

Photoshop

Brothers John and Thomas Knoll gave Photoshop written in Adobe that gained so much popularity that its market hikes and made the company one of the leading brands in media software. This is the most widely used image manipulation program and till date there are no potential competitors who can challenge its position.

Source: colorlib.com

Visicalc

Successful operating systems are built on key programs and Visicalc which was developed for Apple II by VisiCorp, is the prime example of the same. This is the first successful spreadsheet program that did things which completed tasks that were impossible to do with pen and paper. Also, this made people realize that they cannot perform every computational task on their own and there is a need for computing devices or computers.

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UNIX

Ken Thompson, a bright lad came up with Unics (first version of UNIX) to make a game run faster. This OS has advantage, that it could be easily ported to other machines. UNIX could be executed on anything from phones to computers without much hassle. UNIX and its modern derivative known as Linux were written in high-level language, its fan following increased exponentially and now it is one of the most preferred OS by users all over the world.

Source: lifewire.com

C Programming Language

Written by Dennis Ritchie, C was a general-purpose programming and it supported structured programming. This laid the foundation for all upcoming programming languages with which we are now able to code some exceptional applications.

Source: circuitbasics.com

Smalltalk

Yet another programming language, but first object-oriented programming language. Before this, the programmers dealt with strings and numbers. However, with the introduction of this language, programmers could easily describe all other types of strings, namely shapes, sounds, video, etc., as objects.

Xerox Alto Operating System

If you are using Graphical User Interface, are connected with a network, and are capable of performing more than one task simultaneously, then you’ll be glad to know that all these originated at Xerox PARC research facility under a scientist named Alan Kay. It was the first computer that gave others an idea about how multi-chip CPU which was enclosed in a cabin.

EMACS

It was and still is an editing system for the LINUX operating system and introduced us with the first programming environment. And thus, the programmer worked in EMACS environment in which the program could be edited. Furthermore, it could be compiled and linked via single keypress.

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CP/M

This was an accidental invention by Gary Kidall, who wanted to work from home. However, he could not because the machine at his home and workplace were different and thus the revolutionary idea of portability was born. Basically CP/M is a mass-market operating system which was created for Intel 8080/85-based microcomputers. We cannot thank Gary enough as without him, the portable devices would not have been possible.

Wordstar

This was the predecessor of Word and counted words in seconds without any human involvement. This made jaws drop of the common folks. When it printed with a daisy wheel printer then it printed first line forward and the next one backward that saved time.

These were a few developments because of which it would not have been possible to reach the excellence, accuracy and preciseness of today’s world! Have we left anything? Don’t forget to tell us in the comments section below!