subject: Computer Running Extremely slow – Computing through Time [print this page] Computer Running Extremely slow Computing through Time
Computers had been around for quite a long time. As far as history is concerned, the first electric binary programmable computer was created by Konrad Zuse of Germany. He created that computer personally in his parent's living room in 1936 to 1938. And who would forget the ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator? The ENIAC which is considered the first digital computer was created by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. The University of Pennsylvania is the place where it was constructed. The development of the ENIAC begun in 1943 and was completed 3 years later in 1946. Since then, a lot of improvements happened in the world of computers. Almost every year, new developments arise. The improvements can see as exponential. Every single improvement led to other innovations that ultimately spawned the computers that we knew today.
Is your computer running extremely slow? We know that the computers of today are quite powerful, but still, people complain. If we would compare, today's Pc's have a clock rate which is already measured in Gigahertz. We now have supercomputer that has a processing speed of 2.5 Petaflop. This 2.5 Petaflop supercomputer is based in China. In this sense, we cannot say that our computers are slow. People should understand that it's not the speed of the computer that delays the job, but the fact that today's computing is much more intensive and requires more powerful computers. We should understand that some of the jobs today cannot be handled by obsolete computer models. New technology is expensive, but it gets cheaper as newer machines come out. Can you think how much the Pentium II processor costs when it first came out? How about the price of later models as of date? Yes, the price of the Pentium II is higher. In essence, we are not paying for the cost of producing the product, but for the price of the intelli
gence used to develop it. Demand has little effect on the prices because when demand rises, the manufacturers can easily manufacture more. In business terms, the marginal cost or the cost of producing and additional unit of that product is significantly lower. Usefulness of the product at that particular time is also considered. As we know, slower processors cannot handle today's computing requirements and that's the main reason of their disappearance in the market.
We believe that people need to understand these things. Through the years, many people dedicated their time and effort to develop more powerful computers. So next time you say to yourself that "my computer is running extremely slow," you will be thinking about the developments in computing through the years and how it gave rise to the world we know today.
