History of computer

For many centuries people used their own brain- power to

perform calculations. They always searched easy and efficient
ways for performing calculations.They also invented different
calculating devices. A brief history behind the invention of
computer is given below:

Abacus:
The history of computer starts out about 5000
years ago, with the birth of the abacus. It is a
wooden rack holding horizontal wires with
beads strung on them. When these beads are
moved around, according to programming
rules memorized by the user, all regular
arithmetic problems can be done.

Napiers Bones(1550-1617):
John Napier created logarithm tables to
facilitate calculations. He also created a
device using rods, also called napier
bones to perform arithmetic calculations.
These rods were widely used by
accountants and bookkeepers. Several people used the concept
of logarithms to develop the slide rule. With a modern slide rule
you could not only perform the arithmetic operations, but also
calculate squares, square roots, logs, sine, cosine, and tangent.
The slide rule was used till the middle 70s.

Pascals Pascaline Calculator(1623-1662):

Pascal invented a machine that had a system of gears. A onetooth gear engages its single tooth with a ten-tooth gear once
every time it revolves.it must take ten revolutions to rotate the
tenth-tooth gear once. Numbers could be entered and
cumulative sums obtained by cranking a handle. Pascals

calculator was not a commercial success because these devices

could not be build with the sufficient precision for practical use.

Von Leibniz produced a machine that was similar to Pascals

but more reliable and accurate.
Calculating Device of Gottfried Von

Leibnitz(1646-1716):
In 1671, a German mathematician Gottfried Von Leibnitz
developed a calculating machine. It was similar to Pascals
calculating machine. However, Von Leibnitz calculating
machine was more reliable and accurate. This calculating
machine could perform addition, subtraction as well as
multiplication and division calculations. Actually the Leibnitz
calculating machine was the modified form of Pascals
calculating machine.

 Punched Board System of Joseph Marie

Jacquard(1752-1834):
In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French engineer(inventer of
Power Loom),developed a punched board system for Power
Looms.It was used to design specific weaving patterns on cloths
automatically.in punched board system,data and programs
were coded using punched cards.Later the idea of punched
board system was used in calculating devices.

Calculating Device of Charles Xavier(17851871):

In 1820, a scientist of France, Charles Xavier invented a
calculating machine that could perform simple arithmetic
calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division. This calculating machine was named as

Arithmometer.

Calculating Machine of Charles

Babbage(1791-1871):
Charles babbage started to design an automatic mechanical
calculating machine, which he called a difference engine. by
1822 he had a working model to demonstrate. It was intended
to by steam powered and fully automatic, including the printing
of the results. Babbage continued to work on for the next ten
years, but in 1833 he lost interest because he thought he had a
better idea i.e the construction of what would now he
called a general purpose, fully program-controlled,
automatic mechanical digital computer. Babbage called
this idea an Analytical Engine. the idea of this design

showed a lot of foresight, although this couldnt be appreciated

until a full century later. The machine was supposed to operate
automatically, by steam engine power, and require only one
person

Use of punched cards by Hollerith(18601929):

In 1890, Herman Hollerith developed athe first electromechanical punched card tabulator. The tabulator could read
information that had been punched into cards. These cards
were maintained in stack form. Solutions to different problems
could be stored on different stacks of cards and accessed when
needed.
Invention of punched cards opened a gate to modern data
processing. IBM and other computer manufacturers came
forward and started production of punched-card using
computers. These computers could add, multiply and sort
numbers. Data were fed and results were produced on punched
cards.

As compared to todays machine, these computers were slow,

usually processing 50 -220 cards per min, each card holding

about 80 decimal numbers. At that time, however, punched

cards were a huge step forward. They provided a means for
input/output , and memory storage on huge scale.

Atanasoff -Berry Computer

In 1939, professor Dr.
John Atanasoff of USA, and his Computer or ABC (Atanasoff and
Berry Computer). The Boolean algebra was applied for
designing the circuits of this computer. The working model of
ABC was completed in 1942. In this computer, 45 vacuum tubes
were used for performing internal logic operations and
capacitors were used for internal data storage.

Boolean Algebra
Boolean Algebra is the algebra of
logic. It was introduced by English mathematician George Boole
in 1847.
The Boolean
algebras rule or principles are used for designing the circuits
inside the chips. The design of a particular circuit is based on a
set of logical statements. These
statements return results either
true (or 1) or false (or 0). Boolean
algebra uses two binary numbers 0
and 1.

Electronic digital
computers:
The start of world war 2 produced a
large need for computers capacity, especially for the military.
New weapons were made with large numbers of calculations

was needed. In 1942.john P. Eckert, John W Machly, and their

associates at the Moore school of electrical engineering,
university of Pennsylvania decide to build a high speed
electronics computer to do the job. This machine was known as
ENIAC.

The modern stored program EDC:

Fascinated by the success of ENIAC, john von Neumann in 1945
undertook a study of computation that showed that a computer
should have a very simple, fixed physical structure, and yet be
able to perform any kind of computation without the need for
any physical change in the unit.
Von Neumann contributed a new awareness of how practical
and fast computers should be built. These ideas, usually
referred to as the stored- program technique , became essential
for future generations of high speed digital computers and were
universally adopted. According to Von Neumann theory Data
and program can be stored in the same memory. Thus the
machine can be itself alter either its program or internal data
As a result of these ideas, computing and programming
became much faster, more flexible, and efficient.
This group of computers included EDVAC and UNIVAC, which
were the first commercially available computers.
Mark-1 or ASCC
In 1944, an American Dr. Howard Aiken, a
professor of Harvard University, designed a calculating
machine. It was named as Mark-1. It was first fully automatic
calculating machine. Mark-1 is also known as ASCC (Automatic
Sequence Controlled Calculator). The instructions were given to
this machine with the help of punched paper tape. The Mark-1
remained in operation till 1959

.
ENIAC (1943-1946)
ENIAC stands for Electronic
Numerical Integrator And Calculator. It was the first all
electronic computer. It was developed in 1946 by J.P. Eckert and
John Mauchly in USA.
ENIAC contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes and
occupied more than 1,500 square feet with weight of 30 tons. It
could perform 5000 additions per second.
The ENIAC was programmed by physically connecting electrical
wires in the proper order. It was very difficult to detect errors
and to change the program. Similarly, it could store and
manipulate limited amount of data. So, its use was limited.

EDVAC (1946-1952)
EDVAC
stands for Electronic Discrete Variable
Automatic Computer. It was designed
by Dr. John Von Neumann. It was designed on stored program
concept. It could perform arithmetic and logical operations on
data automatically according to programs instructions. The
programs and data were fed in this computer through punched
paper tape. Dr. Von Neumann also gave the concept of storing
both instructions and data in the binary form (0s & 1s).

 EDSAC
EDSAC stands for Electronic
Delayed Storage Automatic Computer. It
was developed in 1949 at Cambridge
University by a group of scientists headed
by professor Maurice Wilkes.

UNIVAC-1 (1951)
UNIVAC stands for Universal Automatic
Computer. It was also developed by J.P. Eckert & John Mauchly
(designers of ENIAC) in 1951. It was the first digital computer.
The programs and data were fed in
this computer through magnetic
tape.
In 1952, the International BuisnessMachine (IBM) Corporation
introduced the 701 commercial
computers. After this, improved models of the UNIVAC and
other 700-series machines were introduced. In 1953, IBM
produced the IBM-650 computer and sold over 1000 of these
computers.
Advancement in 1950s-1960s:
In the early 1950s two important engineering inventions
changed the image of the computers field. These discoveries
were the magnetic core memories and the Transistor circuit
elements. This quickly found its way into new models og digital
computers.
These machines were very expensive and were also
complicated to operate. Such computers were mostly found in
large computers centers, government, and research and

development laboratories. Those computers worked on a single

problem at a time. During this period, the major computer
manufacturers began to offer a range of computer equipment
with different prices, as well as accessories such as:
Card readers
Printers
Cathode ray tube
Central processing unit for these usages did not have to be
very fast and usually used to access large amount of records on
the computers.

More advancement:
The trend during the 1970s was moving from a very powerful
single purpose computers towards a larger range of
applications for cheaper computer system. Moreover, a new
revolution in the computer hardware was under the way, which
allowed the size of computer to be reduced.
In 1980s, very large scale integration, in which hundreds of
transisters were placed on the single chip, became more and
more common. Many companies introduced very successful
PCs in the 1970s in the early 1980s ,however, the Japanese
government announced a big plan to design and build a new
generations of computers.

Computers generations:
First generation computers(1942-1955):
Computers in this generation used vacuum tubes to perform
calculations. Vacuum tubes were expensive because of the
amount of material and skill needed to manufacture them.
Vacuum tubes get hot and burn out. Computers of this
generation were very large. The most important were ENIAC
and UNIVAC-I.

 Second generation computers(1955-1964):

Transistors were invented by William Shockley, John bardeen,
and William Brattian in 1947.
The major change was the replacement of vacuum tubes with
transistor. The transistor is cheaper, smaller, and dissipates less
heat.
As compared to first generation computers 2 nd generation
computers were smaller and had high processing speed. Most
of these computers used magnetic core memory as internal
storage. Examples are IBM 7094 series and IBM 1400 series etc.

3rd generation computers(1964-1975):

The major invention of third generation of computer was the
development of IC. A single IC chip contains thousands of
transistors. The computer became smaller in size, faster, more
reliable, and lower in price. Most sucessesful computers were
IBM system/360 and IBM 370 etc.

 4th generation of computers(1975 onwards ):

4th generation of computers started with the inventions of
microprocessors. LSI and VLSI were designed which contributed
to the invention of microprocessor. Computers of this
generation used semiconductor memory which increased the
internal storage. Examples are apple macintosh and IBM PC etc.

5th generation of computers:

5th generation of computing devices, based on artificial
intelligence, are still in development stage. Though there are
some applications being used today. The use of parallel
processing and semiconductor is helping to make artificial
intelligence reality. The goal of the 5th generation computers ie
to respond to natural language input and are capable of
learning and self-organization.