Brief history of computer

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In order to tell you the story of the operating system , The first thing to look at is what the operating system is , namely How was it born .

The very beginning , Computers don't have an operating system . What was the computer like then ？

Uh , In the wrong , This is an abacus .ps. It should be the earliest computer . Take a look at the real early computers .

This is the early computer , It doesn't use electronic computers like tubes or transistors , It's mechanical , Only some basic operations can be calculated . It's huge , But the function is relatively single , Basic manual operation . This is the basic feature of the early mechanical computers .

With the progress of science and technology , The computer abandoned gears 、 Rotating shaft and other mechanical parts , Towards electrification .

Have seen 《 Imitate the game 》 Is this movie ？ It tells the story of Turing building a general-purpose computer to decrypt the German Ingmar code during World War II , Interested in computer history or Cumberbatch （ She played Sherlock and Dr. strange ） If you are interested, you can have a look . The picture above is a Turing machine built at that time . This is probably what computers look like in the first place ： Large size , Slow speed , You can only handle one task at a time , And it doesn't have much in common CPU Processing module , It's just mechanical action based on electrical characteristics .

With the advent of electronic tubes , Computer evolution , From this time on , Computers are called electronic computers , Become an electronic product .

The size of the early electronic computers was still very large , But the computer at this time is much faster than Turing's computer at that time . At this time, the electronic tube computer works through the card , You can see that the two operators in the figure above are working on the tape . The characteristic of the electronic tube computer at this time is ：

1. Single processing . Only one task can be processed at a time .
2. Task card banding . All the tasks are to make the computer work through the tape .
3. The batch . You can arrange each task in order and execute it one by one .
4. Rudiments of existing operating systems .
5. Von Neumann structure .

A lot of people may have heard the word , What is the von Neumann structure ？

Early computers could only feed it a single instruction , Then it outputs the result once , People always need to give it feeding instructions . If you don't have to feed it one by one , Save all instructions in one thing , And feed it once , People don't have to watch it and then get free to play . This is the structure of von Neumann . You see , This is because people are too lazy to give wisdom . Of course , The von Neumann structure is not so simple to understand , It divides the computer into modules in the figure above , This structural model became the rudiment of today's computer , Indirectly gave birth to the profession of programmer . So the position of von Neumann structure in the history of computer is still very important , Interested students can follow this introduction to search for relevant information to have a look , I won't elaborate here .

Be careful , At this stage, the operating system has appeared . But most operating systems are customized , It's not a general operating system . What is a custom system ？ Each manufacturer's operating system can only be installed and used on that manufacturer's computer , Not compatible with computers from other manufacturers , So each manufacturer is in a state of its own affairs , It's not friendly to the whole computer ecology . What is a general operating system ？ Take the systems that are now on the market ,Linux It can be regarded as a general operating system ,MAC OS It's a custom operating system , because MAC OS Can only be installed on the specified hardware , and Linux It can be installed on most general purpose machines （ Because engineers all over the world contribute hardware drivers to it ）.

With the progress of science and technology , The computing power of computers is getting better and better , The ability to handle only one task at a time is no longer enough , It doesn't work at all , This level of task processing is a waste of computer performance . So the early computer engineers wanted to transform the computer to support multiple tasks at the same time . So how can a computer handle multiple tasks at the same time ？ Do you need more than one person to put the tape instructions into the computer at the same time ？

artificial ？ It's impossible to be artificial in this life . The machine must be allowed to operate by itself ！ however CPU only one , It is not possible to perform multiple tasks at the same time . So how can you make a computer perform multiple tasks at the same time ？ How to let us listen to music and browse the web on the computer ？ Computer engineers designed program scheduling for the operating system , Make multiple tasks seem to be performed at the same time , And the reality is Operating system in 1s Internal multiple tasks switch back and forth .

To sum up , The historical evolution of computers is as follows ：

1. mechanical . In this period, only simple numerical operations can be carried out , Whole process manual participation .
2. Electrification . You can do a slightly more complex number operation , Some manual participation is required .
3. Electron tube . Rudiments of operating system , Some manual participation is required .
4. The transistor . Modern operating systems began to appear , At this time, this kind of computer has not entered the ordinary people's family , Or is it the exclusive tool of the government and large enterprises .
5. The integrated circuit . Now the function of the operating system is improving day by day , Benefit from lower hardware manufacturing costs , Computers begin to enter ordinary families .

The operating system is developed in the process of computer performance getting better and better , Because simple manual operation can't meet the computer's powerful performance .

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