Bilgisayar bilimi tarihi

Bilgisayar bilimi tarihi, modern dijital bilgisayarların ortaya çıkışından çok daha öncelere dayanmaktadır. Abaküs gibi sabit sayısal görevleri hesaplamak için kullanılan makineler, antik çağlardan beri çarpma ve bölme gibi hesaplamalara yardımcı olmuştur. Hesaplamalar yapmaya yaran algoritmalar, antik çağlardan beri, hatta gelişmiş bilgi işlem ekipmanlarının geliştirilmesinden önce bile var olmuştur.

Wilhelm Schickard, 1623'te ilk çalışan mekanik hesap makinesini tasarladı. 1673'te Gottfried Leibniz, "Basamaklı Hesaplayıcı" adını verdiği dijital bir mekanik hesap makinesi icat etti. Diğer nedenlerin yanı sıra, ikili sayı sistemini belgeleyen ilk bilgisayar bilimcisi ve bilgi teorisyeni olarak düşünülebilir. Thomas de Colmar 1820'de her gün ofis ortamında kullanılabilecek kadar güçlü ve güvenilir ilk hesaplama makinesi olan basitleştirilmiş aritmometresini icat ettiğinde mekanik hesap makinesi endüstrisini başlatmaya karar verdi.

Charles Babbage ilk otomatik mekanik hesap makinesinin tasarımına başladı, Fark Makinesi, 1822'de, sonunda ona ilk programlanabilir mekanik hesap makinesi olan Analitik Makine fikrini verdi. Bu makineyi 1834'te geliştirmeye başladı ve iki yıldan daha az bir sürede, modern bilgisayarın göze çarpan özelliklerinin birçoğunu çizmişti. Önemli bir fark, bir kart sisteminin benimsenmesiydi, onu programlanabilir hale getirdi.

1843'te Ada Lovelace'ın yazdığı Analitik Motor hakkındaki bir makalenin çevirisi sırasında, Bernoulli sayılarını hesaplamak için yazdığı algoritma, ilk yayınlanmış algoritma olarak kabul edilir. Herman Hollerith, 1885'te istatistiksel bilgileri işlemek için delikli kartlar kullanan tabloyu icat etti; nihayetinde şirketi IBM'in bir parçası oldu.

Babbage'ın imkansız hayalinden yüz yıl sonra, 1937'de, Howard Aiken, IBM'i her türlü delikli kart ekipmanı üretmesi ve aynı zamanda kendi dev programlanabilir hesap makinesi ASCC / Harvard Mark I'i geliştirmek için ikna etti. Aiken'in bu hesap makinesi, Babbage'ın kendi kart ve merkezi bilgi işlem birimini kullanan Analitik Motoruna dayanıyordu. Makine bittiğinde, Babbage'ın "imkansız rüyası" artık gerçek olmuştu.

1940'larda, Atanasoff-Berry bilgisayarı ve ENIAC gibi yeni ve daha güçlü bilgi işlem makineleri geliştirildikçe, bilgisayar terimi daha çok makinelere atıfta bulunmaya başladı. Bilgisayarların sadece matematiksel hesaplamalar için değil, daha fazlası için kullanılabileceği netleştikçe, bilgisayar bilimleri alanı, genel anlamda hesaplama yapabilmeye de olanak sağlayacak bir şekilde genişledi.

The renovated fraternity house on Manhattan's West Side was IBM's first laboratory devoted to pure science. The lab is the forerunner of IBM's Research Division, which today operates research facilities around the world. Ultimately, the close relationship between IBM and the university was instrumental in the emergence of a new scientific discipline, with Columbia offering one of the first academic-credit courses in computer science in 1946. Computer science began to be established as a distinct academic discipline in the 1950s and early 1960s. The world's first computer science degree program, the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science, began at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in 1953. The first computer science department in the United States was formed at Purdue University in 1962. Since practical computers became available, many applications of computing have become distinct areas of study in their own rights.

Although many initially believed it was impossible that computers themselves could actually be a scientific field of study, in the late fifties it gradually became accepted among the greater academic population. It is the now well-known IBM brand that formed part of the computer science revolution during this time. IBM (short for International Business Machines) released the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709 computers, which were widely used during the exploration period of such devices. "Still, working with the IBM [computer] was frustrating […] if you had misplaced as much as one letter in one instruction, the program would crash, and you would have to start the whole process over again". During the late 1950s, the computer science discipline was very much in its developmental stages, and such issues were commonplace.

The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs, built the first working transistor, the point-contact transistor, in 1947. In 1953, the University of Manchester built the first transistorized computer, called the Transistor Computer. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. The metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuit chips, leading to what is known as the computer revolution or microcomputer revolution.

Time has seen significant improvements in the usability and effectiveness of computing technology. Modern society has seen a significant shift in the users of computer technology, from usage only by experts and professionals, to a near-ubiquitous user base. Initially, computers were quite costly, and some degree of humanitarian aid was needed for efficient use—in part from professional computer operators. As computer adoption became more widespread and affordable, less human assistance was needed for common usage.

Computer Science, known by its near synonyms, Computing, Computer Studies, Information Technology (IT) and Information and Computing Technology (ICT), has been taught in UK schools since the days of batch processing, mark sensitive cards and paper tape but usually to a select few students. In 1981, the BBC produced a micro-computer and classroom network and Computer Studies became common for GCE O level students (11–16-year-old), and Computer Science to A level students. Its importance was recognised, and it became a compulsory part of the National Curriculum, for Key Stage 3 & 4. In September 2014 it became an entitlement for all pupils over the age of 4.

In the US, with 14,000 school districts deciding the curriculum, provision was fractured. According to a 2010 report by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), only 14 out of 50 states have adopted significant education standards for high school computer science.

Israel, New Zealand, and South Korea have included computer science in their national secondary education curricula, and several others are following.

Artificial intelligence (AI) aims to or is required to synthesize goal-orientated processes such as problem-solving, decision-making, environmental adaptation, learning, and communication found in humans and animals. From its origins in cybernetics and in the Dartmouth Conference (1956), artificial intelligence research has been necessarily cross-disciplinary, drawing on areas of expertise such as applied mathematics, symbolic logic, semiotics, electrical engineering, philosophy of mind, neurophysiology, and social intelligence. AI is associated in the popular mind with robotic development, but the main field of practical application has been as an embedded component in areas of software development, which require computational understanding. The starting point in the late 1940s was Alan Turing's question "Can computers think?", and the question remains effectively unanswered, although the Turing test is still used to assess computer output on the scale of human intelligence. But the automation of evaluative and predictive tasks has been increasingly successful as a substitute for human monitoring and intervention in domains of computer application involving complex real-world data.