Written by Muhammed Emin Acar
If we look at the history of computers, they were just big, heavy boxes with nonremovable parts. But computers have changed a lot since then. Now we have desktop computers and laptops that have removable parts. For example, you couldn’t change the memory of old computers and they would be stuck as is. But now you can remove the SSD stick and change it whenever you want to. Today we will talk about computer hardware and the way it evolved
Firstly, we will talk about storage. Old computers used floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, and hard disks as storage. Floppy disks were used from the 1970s to late 1990s. The popularity of floppy disks did not last long because these floppy disks were big and annoying. They were hard to use and did not work sometimes. An average size floppy disk in the late 1990s was 9cm for each edge and floppy disks were squares. CDs and DVDs are removable storage parts that are still used. DVDs and CDs can hold 700mbs at their max but hard disks were the best for storage and speed. Hard disks can hold up to 2 terabytes of memory and this was insane for the computers back then. And now we have SSDs which are the fastest, slimmest, and the storage component that can hold up to 32 terabytes of memory.
Secondly, we will talk about motherboards. Motherboards are the main component that holds all of the other components in one piece. Motherboards haven't changed that much over the past years but the power and the quality of motherboards increased. Motherboards melted sometimes because they were made of plastic and the amount of electricity that passed through the motherboards melted them but now this problem is solved by using unmeltable materials.
Now we will talk about the most important component of computers, CPUs. CPUs are the processors of computers; they are the main brain power of a PC. CPUs have evolved a lot over the past 50 years. The problems with these CPUs don't come to an end. Back in the 1980s processors didn't have enough power to run powerful programs but now the issue with CPUs is that they get hot quickly sometimes they can even go up to 120 degrees Celsius. Right now the most powerful CPU is the Intel Core I9-13900 KS with 24 cores and 32 threads. The oldest CPU to exist is the Intel 4004 with a single core.
Graphic Design is an important part of our lives. It's used in designing houses, cars, etc. Until October 11th, 1999 there were no Graphics cards and the only thing that ran the main information in the computer was processors but on October 11th, 1999 Nvidia released the first ever GPU in the world, the GeForce 256. This was a mind-blowing thing back then. The GPUs were used for graphical data and CPUs were used for informational data. This helped graphic designers use better programs and gamers to have better graphics in their games. GeForce 256 had a single core. Right now the most powerful GPU is the RTX 4090 and it has 18,432 cores.
All of these parts for the computer need a power supply to run and now we will talk about the power supplies. Power supplies are one of the main components that are always needed so a computer can work. Power supplies have changed a lot in power over the last 50 years. The first ever power supply for computers was made by IBM and it had 12v of electricity capacity. Right now a standard cheap power supply can carry up to 500W.
Random Access Memory is a part of the computer that didn't change much. The only thing that has changed is the capacity. The first ever ram was made in 1968 by Robert Dennard and it could carry a few bits of data. Right now a stick of RAM carries up to 64 GB of data.
References:
Erik Gregersen. (2009, March 12). Floppy disk | History & definition. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/technology/floppy-disk
Toppr. (2020, May 18). Hardware and software: Videos, examples, and practice questions. Toppr-guides. https://www.toppr.com/guides/computer-aptitude-and-knowledge/basics-of-computers/hardware-and-software/
Toppr. (2020, October 29). History of computers: Parts, networking, operating systems, FAQs. Toppr-guides.
Comments