The first mechanical computer ever made was created by a man named Charles Babbage, who was a professor at Cambride, England. He's considered the father of all computers because of his two inventions. His first invention was the Difference Endine. Concieved in 1812, it solved polynomial equations. After working on this invention for 10 years, he finally lost interest in it because he had thought up another, better machine. This next invention was called the Analytical Engine. It was a general purpose, fully program-controlled, automatic digital computer. It was operated automatically by steam power and only required one attendant. The Analytical Engine is regarded as the first real predicessor to the modern computer because it has the following: .
An input device, output device, control unit, processor, and storage.
Many years have gone by since then, and the evolution of computers has changed dramatically giving us now what we have, PC's (Personal Computers). This brings me to the computer I have before me. I'm going to show you how to build a computer and the inter-workings of the system. .
The first thing you need to look at is the tower/case/chassis, whichever you prefer to call it. The tower is the frame containing the motherboard, adapter cards, disk drives and any other physical components of the system. In other words it contains the meat and potatoes of the computer. .
The next thing we'll look at is the motherboard. The motherboard is the core of the system. This is where most of the action goes on in a computer. Every single device contained in the tower is conected to the motherboard and it controls everything it is connected to. .
Then we get to the CPU (Central Processing Unit). The CPU is the brain or engine of the computer. First created by Intel in 1971, it's often the most expensive single component in your computer, sometimes costing three to four times more than the actual motherboard it attaches to.
