Oscilators: The Device That Times Everything In Our Computers

Initially computing devices or computers as we call them today, were devices that would help solve math problems and calculate time. Examples of the first computing devices were the clocks ancient civilizations used and the abacus, which was used to do basic math, and while it's cool to see these are devices, it was only during the industrial revolution in the 1800s mechanical calculators and mechanical devices came around for their first time. In the mid-1800s, British mathematician, Charles Babbage tried to make a programmable calculator, though he failed with the only power available at the moment being steam prover. In 1896, American inventor Herman Hollerith expanded and fulfilled Babbage’s invention, when he brought about punch cards. Punch cards allowed people to program computers to perform specific tasks for humans. In the 1940s the first computer known as ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was built at the University of Pennsylvania as part of a secret military project known as Project X, and by the 1950s Project X became something available to the public. Computers run on used parts like transistors, capacitors, and resistors. These parts were eventually fitted into integrated circuits, later leading to the first microprocessor, which Intel made in the 1970s. As many devices like these have come about, we can today divide devices into 2 different categories, ones that require human function and ones that don’t and are timed with their own timing device. Devices like clocks require human function while devices like smartphones have a timing device within them.

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Devices that are timed by humans can run at a max of 60hz, which is not a lot, and for this reason computers are timed using a clock, also known as an oscillator. An oscillator circuit is a circuit which produces continuous repeated signals to control waveform, allowing people to just time a device and then have it run on its own .These digital clocks allow for more control, as they allow devices to run on their own.. These timing devices must be carefully controlled at times, for example, a computer controlled the last 7 minutes of the mars rover landing and it had to be precisely timed to be successful. A way to understand how an oscillator works is comparing it to the autopilot of a tesla or a plane, give cars and planes on autopilot just run as their commands are given, and the thing is autopilot is something which probably runs on an oscillator, give it needs to process fast. Overall, having a circuit which time itself has made a big impact on our world, give without it computers would process at much slower speeds than they do now, not allowing us to do most of the tasks we do today.