The appearance of some technologies can be traced directly to a single place, a specific individual and an exact instant of time. Computers were not like that. The ideas that led to the design of the first computer evolved over a period of hundreds of years of years, with contributions coming from many people, each building on and extending the work of earlier discovers. History for computer can be divided by period for explanation.
The early period:
The history of computer is related with the history of mathematics and arithmetic that begin 3000 years ago with the early work of the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese and Persians. The first half of the seventeenth century saw a number of important developments related to automating and simplifying the drudgery of arithmetic computation.
Some mathematics and Arithmetic inventions:
In 1664 the Scotsman John Napier Invented Logarithms as a way to simplify difficult mathematics. The early seventeenth century also witnessed the development of a number of new and quite powerful mechanical devices designed to help reduce the burden of arithmetic like first slide rule (1966), Pascaline Mechanical calculator by Blaise Pascal (1672), Leibnitz’s wheel by Gottfreid Leibnitz (1974) etc.
These early developments in mathematics and arithmetic were important milestones because they demonstrated how mechanization could simplify and speed up numerical computation. However they are not computers. Specifically they lacked two fundamental characteristics:
¬They did not have a memory where information could be stored in machine-readable form.
¬They were not programmable.
Joseph Jacquard: Surprisingly the first actual “computer devise" to include both of these features was bot created for the purpose of mathematical computation. It was a loom used for the manufacture of the rugs and clothing. It was developed by the Frenchman Joseph Jacquard who wanted to automate the weaving process. Jacquard designed an automated loom that used punched cards to create the desired patterns. There were several punched cards for different design. Thus it had memory and was programmable.
Charles Babbage: One of the major contributions of these pioneers was the enormous influence they had on the designers and inventors who came after them. One person strongly influenced by this early work was mathematics at Cambridge University named Charles Babbage. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is called the father of Computer. He was much interested in automatic computation.
Charles Babbage
In 1823 he extended the ideas of Pascal and Leibnitz and constructed a working model of the largest and the most sophisticated mechanical calculator of its time. This machine, called the Difference Engine could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to 6 significant digits. In the 1830s he designed a more powerful and general-purpose computation machine that could be configures to solve a much wider range of numerical problems. It was named Analytical Engine
His machine had four basic components: a mill to perform the arithmetic manipulation of data, a store to hold the data, a operator to process automatically the instructions and contained a punched cards and an output unit to put the results onto separate punched cards. The components of Analytical Engine are virtually identical in function to the major components of today’s computer system. Many computer scientists consider the analytic engine the first true computer system even if it existed only on paper and in Babbage’s dreams.
Ada Augusta Byron:At the quest of Babbage, he was helped by the Countess Ada Augusta Byron, daughter of the famous English poet, lord Byron. She worked closely with Babbage on specifying how instructions for the Analytic Engine would have to be organized to solve a particular mathematical problem. Because of that Pioneer work, she us generally regarded as history’s first computer programmer.
Herman Hollerith: Another person influenced by the work of the scientists of that time was a young statistician at the U.S. census Bureau named Herman Hollerith. He designed and builds programmable card processing machine that could automatically read, tally and sort data entered on punched card. Hollerith’s machines were enormously successful and they were on of the first example of the use of automated information processing to solve “real-world” problems. Whereas the 1880 census required 8 years to be completed, the 1890 census was finished in about 2 years, even though there was a 30%. Later Hollerith left the Census Bureau in 1902 to found the computer Tabulating Company .In 1924 the company change its name to IBM, and it eventually evolved into the last computing company in the world.
We have still not entered the “computer age”. That did not happen until about 1940
The birth of computers:1940-1950
The world War II have influenced the process of development of computer during this era. Instead of inventory, sales and payroll the concerns of 1940s became ballistics tables troop deployment data and secret codes.
Mark I: Beginning in 1931, the U.S. Navy and IBM jointly founded a project at Harvard University under Professor Howard Aikin to build a computing device called Mark I. The Mark I was completed in 1944 and its generally considered one of the first working general-purpose computers. It had a memory of Capacity 72 numbers and it could be programmed to perform a 23-digit multiplication in the lighting time like 4 seconds.
ENIAC: At about the same time, a much more powerful machine was taking shape at the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with the U.S. Army. The Army initiated a research project with J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly of the university if Pennsylvania to build a completely electronic computing device.
ENIAC
The machine ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was completed in 1946 and was the first fully electronic-general purpose programmable computer.
Others: The Mark I and ENIAC are two well known examples of early computers, but they are no means the only one of that era. For example the ABC system (Attansoff-Berry Computer), designed by the professor John Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry was a specialized computer solving systems of simultaneous linear equation. Some other examples of computer of this era are Colossus of England and Z1 of German.
John Von Neumann: Although these machines were computers in the fullest sense of the word, they did not yet look quite like modern computer system. One more step was necessary and that step was taken in 1946 by the individual who was most instrumental in creating the computer as we know today, John Von Neumann.
Neumann, who taught at the Princeton University had worked with Eckart And Mouchly on the ENIAC projects.
In 1946 he proposed a radically different computer design based on a model called the Stored Program Computer. He also proposed that the instructions that control operation of the computer be encoded as binary values and stored internally in memory unit along with other data. He had invented programming, as it is known today. Von Neumann’s research group at the university of Pennsylvania implemented his ideas and they built one of the first stored program computer called EDVAC (electronic Discrete Variable Computer) in 1951.At about same time a stored program computer called EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Arithmetic Calculator) was built at Cambridge University in England under the direction of professor Maurice Wilkies. A commercial model of EDVAC called UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was build by Eckert Mauchly and delivered to U.S.
The importance of Von Neumann’s contributions to computer systems development cannot be overstated. Although his original proposals are almost 60 years old, virtually every computer built today is a Von Neaumann machine in its basic.
The modern Era:1950 to the present
The last 50 or 60 years of computer development have involved taking the basic model and improving in terms of both hardware and software. Since 1950 computer systems development has been primarily an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one. However the changes that have occurred are interesting and this section briefly highlights some of these major development.
First generations of computers:
The period 1950-1957 is often called the first generation of computing. This era saw the appearance of UNIVAC I the first computer built for sale and IBM 701.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬During these time most input output media were punched cards and magnetic tape.
¬Main memory was almost exclusively made up to hundreds of vacuum tubes-although one computer used a magnetic drum for main memory.
¬These computers were somewhat unreliable because the vacuum tubes failed frequently.
¬They were also slower than the microcomputer used today, produced a tremendous amount if heat, and were very large.
¬They could run only one program at a time.
These first generation programs did not have much impact on the average person.
Second generation of computers:
The second generation of computing, roughly 1957-1965 heralded a major change in size and complexity of computers.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬In the late 1950s,the bulky vacuum tube was replaced by a single transistor only a few millimeters in size .
¬Memory was now constructed using tiny magnetic cones only 1/50 of an inch in diameter.
¬These technology reduced the sized of computers and increased the reliability and reduced cost.
¬Removable magnetic disk packs, sacks of disks connected by a common spindle were introduced as a storage device.
¬This was also an era of the appearance of FORTRAN and COBOL, the first High level programming languages.
The occupation called a programmer was born.
Third generation of computers:
The miniaturization process continued into the third generation of computing which lasted from 1965 to 1975.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
-This was the era of the integrated circuit .its a complete electronic circuit that packages transistors and other electronic components on a small silicon chip.
¬The use of magnetic disk for data storage become widespread and computers began to support such capabilities as microprogramming and timesharing.
This period saw the birth of minicomputer-the PDP-1 manufactured by the Digital Equipment Crop. It also saw the birth of software industry. By the mid 1970-computers were no longer a rarity. They were being widely used throughout business, government, the military and education.
The fourth Generation of computers:
The fourth generation,1975-1985 saw the appearance of first microcomputer. The desk-size machine of the early 1970s now became a desktop machine, shrinking to the size of the typewriter. World first microcomputer is Altair 8800,which appeared in January 1975.
Altair 8800
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬High scale integrated (LSI) and Very Large scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits were developed that contained hundred to millions of transistors on a tiny chip.
¬This era saw the appliance of the first computer network.
¬Electronic mail becomes an important application.
¬The concept of user-friendly system was introduced for the new users.
¬This included new graphical user interfaces with pull down menus, icons and other visual aids to make computing easier and more fun.
Fifth Generation of Computers:
The fifth generation 1985-? is where we are today. However, so much is changing so fast that most computer scientist believe that concept of distinct generation has outlived its its usefulness .In computer science change is now constant companion. Some of the recent computer systems development include
¬Massively parallel processors capable of trillions of computations per second.
¬Handheld devices and other types of personal digital assistants (PDAs)
¬High resolution graphics for imaging, movie making and virtual reality
¬Powerful multimedia user interfaces incorporating data, television, telephone FAX, the Internet and World Wide Web
¬Wireless data communication
¬Massive storage devices capable of holding hundreds of trillion of pieces of data
¬Ubiquitous computing, in which miniature computers are embedded into our cars, kitchen appliances, home heating systems and even the clothes we wear.
This was the history of computers in short.
The early period:
The history of computer is related with the history of mathematics and arithmetic that begin 3000 years ago with the early work of the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese and Persians. The first half of the seventeenth century saw a number of important developments related to automating and simplifying the drudgery of arithmetic computation.
Some mathematics and Arithmetic inventions:
In 1664 the Scotsman John Napier Invented Logarithms as a way to simplify difficult mathematics. The early seventeenth century also witnessed the development of a number of new and quite powerful mechanical devices designed to help reduce the burden of arithmetic like first slide rule (1966), Pascaline Mechanical calculator by Blaise Pascal (1672), Leibnitz’s wheel by Gottfreid Leibnitz (1974) etc.
These early developments in mathematics and arithmetic were important milestones because they demonstrated how mechanization could simplify and speed up numerical computation. However they are not computers. Specifically they lacked two fundamental characteristics:
¬They did not have a memory where information could be stored in machine-readable form.
¬They were not programmable.
Joseph Jacquard: Surprisingly the first actual “computer devise" to include both of these features was bot created for the purpose of mathematical computation. It was a loom used for the manufacture of the rugs and clothing. It was developed by the Frenchman Joseph Jacquard who wanted to automate the weaving process. Jacquard designed an automated loom that used punched cards to create the desired patterns. There were several punched cards for different design. Thus it had memory and was programmable.
Charles Babbage: One of the major contributions of these pioneers was the enormous influence they had on the designers and inventors who came after them. One person strongly influenced by this early work was mathematics at Cambridge University named Charles Babbage. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) is called the father of Computer. He was much interested in automatic computation.
Charles Babbage
In 1823 he extended the ideas of Pascal and Leibnitz and constructed a working model of the largest and the most sophisticated mechanical calculator of its time. This machine, called the Difference Engine could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to 6 significant digits. In the 1830s he designed a more powerful and general-purpose computation machine that could be configures to solve a much wider range of numerical problems. It was named Analytical Engine
His machine had four basic components: a mill to perform the arithmetic manipulation of data, a store to hold the data, a operator to process automatically the instructions and contained a punched cards and an output unit to put the results onto separate punched cards. The components of Analytical Engine are virtually identical in function to the major components of today’s computer system. Many computer scientists consider the analytic engine the first true computer system even if it existed only on paper and in Babbage’s dreams.
Ada Augusta Byron:At the quest of Babbage, he was helped by the Countess Ada Augusta Byron, daughter of the famous English poet, lord Byron. She worked closely with Babbage on specifying how instructions for the Analytic Engine would have to be organized to solve a particular mathematical problem. Because of that Pioneer work, she us generally regarded as history’s first computer programmer.
Herman Hollerith: Another person influenced by the work of the scientists of that time was a young statistician at the U.S. census Bureau named Herman Hollerith. He designed and builds programmable card processing machine that could automatically read, tally and sort data entered on punched card. Hollerith’s machines were enormously successful and they were on of the first example of the use of automated information processing to solve “real-world” problems. Whereas the 1880 census required 8 years to be completed, the 1890 census was finished in about 2 years, even though there was a 30%. Later Hollerith left the Census Bureau in 1902 to found the computer Tabulating Company .In 1924 the company change its name to IBM, and it eventually evolved into the last computing company in the world.
We have still not entered the “computer age”. That did not happen until about 1940
The birth of computers:1940-1950
The world War II have influenced the process of development of computer during this era. Instead of inventory, sales and payroll the concerns of 1940s became ballistics tables troop deployment data and secret codes.
Mark I: Beginning in 1931, the U.S. Navy and IBM jointly founded a project at Harvard University under Professor Howard Aikin to build a computing device called Mark I. The Mark I was completed in 1944 and its generally considered one of the first working general-purpose computers. It had a memory of Capacity 72 numbers and it could be programmed to perform a 23-digit multiplication in the lighting time like 4 seconds.
ENIAC: At about the same time, a much more powerful machine was taking shape at the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with the U.S. Army. The Army initiated a research project with J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly of the university if Pennsylvania to build a completely electronic computing device.
ENIAC
The machine ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was completed in 1946 and was the first fully electronic-general purpose programmable computer.
Others: The Mark I and ENIAC are two well known examples of early computers, but they are no means the only one of that era. For example the ABC system (Attansoff-Berry Computer), designed by the professor John Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry was a specialized computer solving systems of simultaneous linear equation. Some other examples of computer of this era are Colossus of England and Z1 of German.
John Von Neumann: Although these machines were computers in the fullest sense of the word, they did not yet look quite like modern computer system. One more step was necessary and that step was taken in 1946 by the individual who was most instrumental in creating the computer as we know today, John Von Neumann.
Neumann, who taught at the Princeton University had worked with Eckart And Mouchly on the ENIAC projects.
In 1946 he proposed a radically different computer design based on a model called the Stored Program Computer. He also proposed that the instructions that control operation of the computer be encoded as binary values and stored internally in memory unit along with other data. He had invented programming, as it is known today. Von Neumann’s research group at the university of Pennsylvania implemented his ideas and they built one of the first stored program computer called EDVAC (electronic Discrete Variable Computer) in 1951.At about same time a stored program computer called EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Arithmetic Calculator) was built at Cambridge University in England under the direction of professor Maurice Wilkies. A commercial model of EDVAC called UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was build by Eckert Mauchly and delivered to U.S.
The importance of Von Neumann’s contributions to computer systems development cannot be overstated. Although his original proposals are almost 60 years old, virtually every computer built today is a Von Neaumann machine in its basic.
The modern Era:1950 to the present
The last 50 or 60 years of computer development have involved taking the basic model and improving in terms of both hardware and software. Since 1950 computer systems development has been primarily an evolutionary process, not a revolutionary one. However the changes that have occurred are interesting and this section briefly highlights some of these major development.
First generations of computers:
The period 1950-1957 is often called the first generation of computing. This era saw the appearance of UNIVAC I the first computer built for sale and IBM 701.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬During these time most input output media were punched cards and magnetic tape.
¬Main memory was almost exclusively made up to hundreds of vacuum tubes-although one computer used a magnetic drum for main memory.
¬These computers were somewhat unreliable because the vacuum tubes failed frequently.
¬They were also slower than the microcomputer used today, produced a tremendous amount if heat, and were very large.
¬They could run only one program at a time.
These first generation programs did not have much impact on the average person.
Second generation of computers:
The second generation of computing, roughly 1957-1965 heralded a major change in size and complexity of computers.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬In the late 1950s,the bulky vacuum tube was replaced by a single transistor only a few millimeters in size .
¬Memory was now constructed using tiny magnetic cones only 1/50 of an inch in diameter.
¬These technology reduced the sized of computers and increased the reliability and reduced cost.
¬Removable magnetic disk packs, sacks of disks connected by a common spindle were introduced as a storage device.
¬This was also an era of the appearance of FORTRAN and COBOL, the first High level programming languages.
The occupation called a programmer was born.
Third generation of computers:
The miniaturization process continued into the third generation of computing which lasted from 1965 to 1975.
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
-This was the era of the integrated circuit .its a complete electronic circuit that packages transistors and other electronic components on a small silicon chip.
¬The use of magnetic disk for data storage become widespread and computers began to support such capabilities as microprogramming and timesharing.
This period saw the birth of minicomputer-the PDP-1 manufactured by the Digital Equipment Crop. It also saw the birth of software industry. By the mid 1970-computers were no longer a rarity. They were being widely used throughout business, government, the military and education.
The fourth Generation of computers:
The fourth generation,1975-1985 saw the appearance of first microcomputer. The desk-size machine of the early 1970s now became a desktop machine, shrinking to the size of the typewriter. World first microcomputer is Altair 8800,which appeared in January 1975.
Altair 8800
The characteristics of the computers of these generations are:
¬High scale integrated (LSI) and Very Large scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits were developed that contained hundred to millions of transistors on a tiny chip.
¬This era saw the appliance of the first computer network.
¬Electronic mail becomes an important application.
¬The concept of user-friendly system was introduced for the new users.
¬This included new graphical user interfaces with pull down menus, icons and other visual aids to make computing easier and more fun.
Fifth Generation of Computers:
The fifth generation 1985-? is where we are today. However, so much is changing so fast that most computer scientist believe that concept of distinct generation has outlived its its usefulness .In computer science change is now constant companion. Some of the recent computer systems development include
¬Massively parallel processors capable of trillions of computations per second.
¬Handheld devices and other types of personal digital assistants (PDAs)
¬High resolution graphics for imaging, movie making and virtual reality
¬Powerful multimedia user interfaces incorporating data, television, telephone FAX, the Internet and World Wide Web
¬Wireless data communication
¬Massive storage devices capable of holding hundreds of trillion of pieces of data
¬Ubiquitous computing, in which miniature computers are embedded into our cars, kitchen appliances, home heating systems and even the clothes we wear.
This was the history of computers in short.
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