Computers are now involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the smartphones in our hands to the vehicles we drive. It is interesting to wonder if we could live without computers now. We take them for granted that’s for sure. Here are some fascinating facts about the computing world that you might not know:
- Did you know that computers were in fact invented in the U.S in the 1880s to solve a number crunching exercise. The population had grown so significantly that it took nearly 7 years to tabulate the results by hand. Computers based on a punch card system that filled entire rooms were invented to help the government with this problem.
- The first computer was called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). It was massive, taking up more than 1800 square feet and weighed a whopping 27 tonnes. The world of computing owes a great deal to metal fabrication industries. For more information on how metal is fabricated, consider the role of Euromac Bending Machines from cotswold-machinery-sales.co.uk/euromac/horizontal-bending-machines/
- The very worst computer breach to occur happened to the U.S military. An employee had left a memory stick lying in a car park and foreign agents used it to carry out their operations!
- Did you know that the first mouse was made from wood and was designed in 1964 by Douglas Engelbert?
- Computer protection is very important as there are approximately 5,000 new computer viruses created every single month. Cyber security is a fast growing industry as the more we store data, the more people there are who want to steal it!
- Most of the world’s currency exists only in digital form. Experts estimate that only 10% of the world’s money is in physical form with the rest sitting in digital form.
- A computer can impact the normal blinking behaviour of a human. When not looking at a screen, a person will blink around 20 times per minute but when looking at a computer screen this reduces to around 7 times per minute.
- The very first 1GB hard disk was made in 1980 and weighed an incredible 550 pounds. It also had a hefty price tag at $40,000. Thankfully they have now become much smaller and a lot cheaper!
- The first computer programmer was actually a woman. Ada Lovelace worked as a mathematician and writer and carried out extensive work on an analytical engine.
- Do you get really annoyed by the CAPTCHA images you have to complete when trying to access certain sites? But how many people really know what it stands for? Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers And Humans Apart.
- The name of the very first computer virus in 1971 was The Creeper. Thankfully, it was completely harmless and was created by a computer developer to see how viruses spread from one computer to another.
- The first customer to buy a commercially available computer was the U.S Navy. The 1101 system could store 1000000 bits and offered high speed capabilities suitable for military use.
