The History of Computer Programming Research Paper

The History of Computer Programming - Research Paper Example Computer programming started in the 19th century, though scientists had started designing several devices such as calculators for various purposes before this period. Charles Babbage designed the first programmable computer in 1835, called the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine could be programmed to solve computational problems. Ada Lovelace designed the first program for the Analytical Engine and invented the programming loop and subroutine. Herman Hollerith invented the concept of data recording on machine readable media in the late 1880s. He used punched cards and invented two machines namely the tabulator and keypunch to process the cards (Campbell-Kelly and Aspray 45). In the 1940s, computer coding was done manually and then entered into the system as the systems were slow and had limited memory. Computer programming languages such as Plankalkul, C-10, and ENIAC were developed. A machine called Robinson was developed in 1940 by the British in order to decrypt the messages encrypted using the Enigma machine by the German military during World War II. Z3 was designed in Germany in 1941 by Konrad Zuse. He started developing Plankalkul (Plan Calculus) in 1945, which was the first algorithmic computer programming language. His machines were destroyed during the World War II and only the Z4 survived. Scientists from IBM and Harvaerd designed a programmable computer in 1944 called Mark I (O’Regan 124). In 1945, John Von Neumann invented the concepts of ‘shared-program technique’ and ‘conditional control transfer’. The shared program technique stated that complex instructions should control simple hardware instead of the simple hardware being wired for every program. The conditional control transfer enabled the development of loops with IF, THEN, and FOR statements. This concept also suggested that small code blocks could take any random order instead of the steps ordered chronologically. Von Neumann architecture was invented and it enabled the