by Alan Barton, All News Pipeline:

Computers. They are all over the place and even reside in many things you may be surprised to realize they are controlling. This hackneyed component of modern life has been around in some form for millennia from the simple numeral frame to the more advanced abacus and included the use of fingers, stones etc to represent multiples and sets of other numbers (I will admit to still using that method for quick calculations). Their basic history and functions are actually easy to understand and we have covered it before, but a refresher may be a nice option at this point. The first computers were mechanical and even hydro mechanical and in the 1900’s electro mechanical and then fully electronic computers were invented that at first used vacuum tubes as the state switches before transistors were developed to fill that role at much reduced cost, size and power consumption to say nothing of increased speeds of operation and reliability.