Computer Engineering

Computer engineering can be generalized as the summation of the electronic sciences by integrating certain components varying from microprocessors all the way to supercomputers. The development of the computer has shaped the way technology and science is viewed in different cultures around the world. The definition of what the archetype and function of a computer is a monitor, keyboard, processor and its other electronic components; however, that is not how things have always been. Computers have been around for quite some time and were developed over many years with contributions from philosophers, inventors, engineers, mathematicians, physicists, technicians, visionaries, and scholars.

The first computers were simplistic mathematical calculating and eventually transformed into the computers that exist in the modern world. It has taken over 180 years for the computer to develop from an idea in Charles Babbage’s head into an actual computer developed today by many different companies. There was over a century of work to be done to make the computer into what we now use today. Before computers, people had to do calculations using such tool as a Chinese abacus or a slide rule to work out problems by hand. These small manually calculated devices over time evolved into the calculators developed in Japan in 1969, which were then used by Ted Hoff to produce a ‘soft-wired’ circuit, better known as a computer chip. Before and even more so after this invention, companies and government alike were delving into the science, designing computers that were specifically designed for a single task or few tasks which signaled the need for the computer. To differentiate these early computers, they were coded in separate binaries to perform their ...

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...passing its previous models, but still manages to be crippled by heating issues, which only sheds proof that even though we can engineer new devices that can surpass the performance of previous models, we are still limited by things such as overheating and power consumption.

The early most-known contributors of computer science and engineering accomplished many things we still plainly recognize today: the production of a rudimentary Japanese calculator, MITS’ (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) production of the Altair which then lead to Paul Allen and Bill gates’ invention of the MOS-DOS operating system, to name a few. All of these discoveries and inventions are merely stepping stones that the founders of computer technology have crafted that lead towards the future, which surely will rapidly progress into an ever expanding world of computer engineering.