The first ever machine which calculated the difference between numbers was developed by Charles Babbage. This machine evolved with time and is called a computer nowadays. The machine which Charles Babbage invented used to perform only one operation i.e. calculating difference between numbers. This instruction which tells the machine that it has to calculate difference between two numbers is called programming.
Earlier programming languages were a lot different than today’s. In those days the programming languages were to be embedded line by line into the processor and then execute. They were able to execute only one program at a time as the memory available was minimal. Programming languages of the previous five decades have arrived in two phases; namely primary major language and secondary major language. The latter one is what we use nowadays.
The machine that was developed by Charles Babbage used gears for executing the calculation i.e. Charles’ difference engine was only useful if the gears were changed physically. The computers of yesteryears used physical motion for the execution of programs. This method changed in 1942 with the invention of ENIAC. ENIAC was developed by the US government who were successful in replacing the physical motion by electrical signals. In the new machine’s working many of the principles were same as Babbage’s. The only way the mechanism could be programmed was by resetting the controls and rewiring the complete structure, which was very tedious.
In 1945, the Institute of Advanced Study developed two significant models in the field which straightforwardly changed the way coding languages worked in those days. The project was headed by John Von Neumann who was working at the institute. The first model was named “The Shared Program Technique†by the Institute. John named the second model as “Conditional Control Transfersâ€. These two models were about to change the entire system of programming in those days and give way to new age programming concepts.