BUSINESS COMPUTER

HISTORY OF COMPUTER

Contents
INTRODUTION:- ....................................................................................................................................... 3
EARLY HISTORY: (Williams, 1997) ........................................................................................................ 4
ABACUS: ................................................................................................................................................. 4
NAPIER RODS: ....................................................................................................................................... 4
PERCALINE: ........................................................................................................................................... 4
CHARLEE’S BABBAGE’S DIFFERENCE ENGINE & ANALYTICAL ENGINE: ............................ 5
PUNCHED CARD: .................................................................................................................................. 5
Z 3: ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
MODERN HISTORY: (1940’S ONWARD) ............................................................................................. 6
THE GENERATION OF COMPUTER: (Goel, 2010) ............................................................................. 6
THE FIRST GENERATION (1943-1958): .............................................................................................. 6
ABC COMPUTER: “ATANASOFF BERRY COMPUTER” ............................................................. 7
MARK 1: .............................................................................................................................................. 7
ENIAC: ................................................................................................................................................. 8
EDSAC: ................................................................................................................................................ 9
UNIVAC: .............................................................................................................................................. 9
THE SECOND GENERATION (1959-1964): ....................................................................................... 10
PDP 1: ................................................................................................................................................. 10
IBM 1400: ........................................................................................................................................... 11
THE THIRD GENERATION (1965-1970): ........................................................................................... 11
PDP 8: ................................................................................................................................................. 12
THE FOURTH GENERATION (1971-PRESENT): .............................................................................. 12
APPLE I APPLE II: ............................................................................................................................ 13
IBM PC: .............................................................................................................................................. 13
APPLE MACINTOSH: ...................................................................................................................... 14
THE FIFTH GENERATION (THE FUTURE): ..................................................................................... 14

P a g e 1 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

DEEP BLUE: ...................................................................................................................................... 15

TODAY’S COMPUTERS: ....................................................................................................................... 15
PALM COMPUTER:.............................................................................................................................. 15
PDA: ....................................................................................................................................................... 15
LAPTOP: ................................................................................................................................................ 16
References ................................................................................................................................................... 18

P a g e 2 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

INTRODUTION:-
Computers have been around a lot longer than many people might
imagine. The word "computer" has changed meaning over decades, but the
electronic computer that we think of in modern times developed throughout the
second half of the 20th century. Its popularity as a household item surged in the
1980s following the arrival of operating systems by Apple and Microsoft that
mixed graphics and text, replacing the text-only systems of the 1970s. By the
1990s, computers incorporated enhanced communication and multimedia
applications and became an indispensable part of daily life for millions of
people.Computers and electronics play an enormous role in today's society,
impacting everything from communication and medicine to science.Although
computers are typically viewed as a modern invention involving electronics,
computing predates the use of electrical devices. The ancient abacus was perhaps
the first digital computing device. Analog computing dates back several millennia
as primitive computing devices were used as early as the ancient Greeks and
Romans, the most known complex of which being the Antikythera mechanism.
Later devices such as the castle clock (1206), slide rule (c. 1624) and Babbage's
Difference Engine (1822) are other examples of early mechanical analog
computers.

The introduction of electric power in the 19th century led to the rise of electrical
and hybrid electro-mechanical devices to carry out both digital (Hollerith punch-
card machine) and analog (Bush’s differential analyzer) calculation. Telephone
switching came to be based on this technology, which led to the development of
machines that we would recognize as early computers. The presentation of the
Edison Effect in 1885 provided the theoretical background for electronic devices.
Originally in the form of vacuum tubes, electronic components were rapidly
integrated into electric devices, revolutionizing radio and later television. It was in
computers however, where the full impact of electronics was felt. Analog
computers used to calculate ballistics were crucial to the outcome of World War II,
and the Colossus and the ENIAC, the two earliest electronic digital computers,
P a g e 3 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

were developed during the war. With the invention of solid-state electronics, the
transistor and ultimately the integrated circuit, computers would become much
smaller and eventually affordable for the average consumer. Today “computers”
are present in nearly every aspect of everyday life, from watches to automobiles.

EARLY HISTORY: (Williams, 1997)

“Necessity is the mother of invention”, famous saying formed the basis of modern
computer
.
The early history starts from:

ABACUS:

Very first computing device ABACUS also called

Soroban invented in 600 BC was the first computing
Device.

NAPIER RODS:

Napier Rods was a card board multiplication calculator.

It was designed in early 17th
Century.

PERCALINE:

1642:
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, invented the first operating model
of mechanical digital calculator using gears, called the Arithmetic Machine “PASCALINE”
It was used for addition, subtraction,
Multiplication and
Division.

P a g e 4 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

CHARLEE’S BABBAGE’S DIFFERENCE ENGINE & ANALYTICAL

ENGINE:

Charles is the “The Father of Computers”

1822: His great invention “Difference engine Difference engine
”was to perform mathematical calculations.

It was fully automatic and commanded by a fixed instruction program

1842“The Analytical Engine the Analytical Engine

“Was an automatic machine .It could do 60 addition per minute
The idea of analytical engine didn’t take physical form but served as a base for
modern digital computers

PUNCHED CARD:

1890: Dr. Herman Hollerith introduced the

First electromechanical, punched-card
Data-processing machine
It was used to compile information for the
1890 U.S. census

P a g e 5 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

His company would eventually become International Business Machines (IBM)

This paper based machine represents the origin of computer database software.

Z 3:

 1941:Conrad Zeus from Germany, introduced the first programmable computer

 It solved complex engineering equations.

 It was also the first to work on the binary system instead of the decimal system.

MODERN HISTORY: (1940’S ONWARD)

THE GENERATION OF COMPUTER: (Goel, 2010)

It used to be quite popular to refer to computers as belonging to one of several

"generations" of computer. These generations are:-

THE FIRST GENERATION (1943-1958):

P a g e 6 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

This generation is often described as starting with the delivery of the

first commercial computer to a business client. This happened in 1951 with the
delivery of the UNIVAC to the US Bureau of the Census. This generation lasted
until about the end of the 1950's (although some stayed in operation much longer
than that). The main defining feature of the first generation of computers was
that vacuum tubes were used as internal computer components. Vacuum tubes are
generally about 5-10 centimeters in length and the large numbers of them required
in computers resulted in huge and extremely expensive machines that often broke
down (as tubes failed).

ABC COMPUTER: “ATANASOFF BERRY COMPUTER”

 1942: It was developed by Dr John Atanasoff to solve certain mathematical equations.

 It was the first electronic digital computer

 It used 45 vacuum tubes for internal logic and capacitor for storage

MARK 1:

 1944: Mark 1 Computer

 It is also known as Automatic sequence Controlled Calculator

P a g e 7 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

 It is also known as Automatic sequence computer.

 It was first automatic calculating machine designed by Howard A

 Aiken with IBM Corporation.

Features:

 It could perform five basic arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication,

division and table reference

 It took approximately 0.3 seconds to add two numbers and 4.5 seconds for multiplication of
two numbers

Disadvantages:

 It was huge in size

 Complex in design.

 Very slow.

ENIAC:

 1946:
The ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator)
machine was developed by John W. Mauchly and.J. Presper Eckert, Jr. at the University
of Pennsylvania.

 Reason:

It was developed for military need.

P a g e 8 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

 Features:

1. It used 18,000 vacuum tubes Punch-card input.

2. Weighed thirty tons and occupied a thirty-by-fifty-foot space.

3. It was programmable only by changing the wiring, not through software changes, but was
productive from 1946 to 1955 and was used to compute artillery firing tables
EDSAC:

 1949: The EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic calculator) was made
by the British
 It could do addition in 1500microseconds and multiplication
 In 4000 seconds.

UNIVAC:

1951: The UNIVAC (universal automatic Computer) was the first digital computer
invented by Muchly and Eckert.

Features:

 It used vacuum tubes

 Government received delivery of first UNIVAC in 1951 after

P a g e 9 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

 U.S. Census processing started.

 UNIVAC I, was the first computer designed and sold commercially,

specifically for business data-processing applications.

 It used a 100 megabyte hard drive.

 It could be used for business and scientific purpose.

THE SECOND GENERATION (1959-1964):

The mid-1950's Bell Labs developed the transistor. Transistors were capable of
performing many of the same tasks as vacuum tubes but were only a fraction of the
size. The first transistor-based computer was produced in 1959. Transistors were
not only smaller, enabling computer size to be reduced, but they were faster, more
reliable and consumed less electricity.

The other main improvement of this period was the development of computer
languages. Assembler languages or symbolic languages allowed programmers to
specify instructions in words (albeit very cryptic words) which were then translated
into a form that the machines could understand (typically series of 0's and 1's:
Binary code). High level languages1 also came into being during this period.
Whereas assembler languages had a one-to-one correspondence between their
symbols and actual machine functions, higher level language commands often
represent complex sequences of machine codes. Two higher-level languages
developed during this period (FORTRAN2 and COBOL3) are still in use today
though in a much more developed form.

PDP 1:
 1960: DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) introduced the Programmed Data
Processor,PDP-1

1
High level languages are the languages which are far form the computer. Computer nead a translator to
understand them.
2
FORTORN (formula translation) it is a computer language use for athematic operations.
3
COBOL(common business orientated language) it is a language which is helpful in business purposes.
P a g e 10 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

 The PDP-1 was a main frame computer famous for its low costs.
 The PDP-1 did not contain many advanced peripherals or softwares.

IBM 1400:

 1961: The IBM 1400 Series were major breakthrough first computer in this series was
IBM 1401.

 IBM 1401 used transistors instead of the vacuum

tubes found in previous IBM computers.

 The system contained many peripherals which included a new high-speed printer. This print
could print 600 lines per minute

THE THIRD GENERATION (1965-1970):

In 1965 the first integrated circuit (IC) was developed in which a complete circuit
of hundreds of components were able to be placed on a single silicon chip 2 or 3
mm square. Computers using these IC's soon replaced transistor based machines.
Again, one of the major advantages was size, with computers becoming more
powerful and at the same time much smaller and cheaper. Computers thus became
accessible to a much larger audience. An added advantage of smaller size is that
electrical signals have much shorter distances to travel and so the speed of
computers increased.

P a g e 11 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

Another feature of this period is that computer software became much

more powerful and flexible and for the first time more than one program could
share the computer's resources at the same time (multi-tasking). The majority of
programming languages used today are often referred to as 3GL's (3rd generation
languages) even though some of them originated during the 2nd generation.

PDP 8:

 The PDP-8 minicomputer was designed &built from 1965 to 1980,

 It was the first mass market mini-computer developed for educational purpose.

 It was implemented using four generations of technology: Germanium transistors ,SSI,MSI

and LSI

 Additionally it possesses two attributes i.e. continuing interest in its architecture and
implementation.

THE FOURTH GENERATION (1971-PRESENT):

The boundary between the third and fourth generations is not very clear-cut at all.
Most of the developments since the mid 1960's can be seen as part of a continuum
of gradual miniaturization. In 1970 large-scale integration was achieved where
the equivalent of thousands of integrated circuits were crammed onto a single
silicon chip. This development again increased computer performance (especially
reliability and speed) whilst reducing computer size and cost. Around this time the
P a g e 12 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

first complete general-purpose microprocessor became available on a single chip.

In 1975 Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) took the process one step further.
Complete computer central processors could now be built into one chip.
The microcomputer was born. Such chips are far more powerful than ENIAC and
are only about 1cm square whilst ENIAC filled a large building.

During this period Fourth Generation Languages (4GL's) have come into
existence. Such languages are a step further removed from the computer hardware
in that they use language much like natural language. Many database languages
can be described as 4GL's. They are generally much easier to learn than are 3GL's.

APPLE I APPLE II:

1976:
 Jobs and Wozniak designed and built the Apple I
computer.

Then the following year

1977:
 Introduced the Apple II microcomputer.

 During 1976-77 many other personal computer brand were marketed.

 These both have characteristics of a PC.

IBM PC4:

 1981:,IBM tossed its hat into the personal

computer, easily fit on a table or desk.

 They were available in taller or narrow size and

have common features of personal computers.

P a g e 13 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

 1980: IBM offers Bill Gates the opportunity

to develop the operating system called MS-DOS for its new IBM personal computer.

 1981: The IBM PC was introduced with a 16-bit 4.77 MHz Intel 8088microprocessor and
used Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.

APPLE MACINTOSH:

 1984: Apple Computers launched (during the Super Bowl) the Macintosh, the first
successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface.

 It was based on the Motorola68000 microprocessor.

 Its applications that came as part of the package included Mac Paint, which made use of the
mouse, and MacWrite.

THE FIFTH GENERATION (THE FUTURE):

The "fifth generation" of computers were defined by the Japanese government in
1980 when they unveiled an optimistic ten-year plan to produce the next
generation of computers. This was an interesting plan for two reasons. Firstly, it is
not at all really clear what the fourth generation is, or even whether the third
generation had finished yet. Secondly, it was an attempt to define a generation of
computers before they had come into existence. The main requirements of the 5G
machines was that they incorporate the features of Artificial Intelligence, Expert
Systems, and Natural Language. The goal was to produce machines that are
capable of performing tasks in similar ways to humans, are capable of learning,
and are capable of interacting with humans in natural language and preferably
using both speech input (speech recognition) and speech output (speech synthesis).
Such goals are obviously of interest to linguists and speech scientists as natural
language and speech processing are key components of the definition. As you may

P a g e 14 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

have guessed, this goal has not yet been fully realised, although significant
progress has been made towards various aspects of these goals.

DEEP BLUE:
 Deep Blue is a chess playing computer developed by IBM On 11 May 1997.

 The machine won a six-game match by two wins to one with three draws
against world champion Garry Kasparov.

 Kasparov accused IBM of cheating and demanded a rematch, but IBM declined
and dismantled Deep Blue. Kasparov beat a previous version of Deep Blue
in1996.

TODAY’S COMPUTERS:

PALM COMPUTER:

1999: Palm Computing introduced the Palm VII handheld computer.

Features:

 2 MB RAM, and telephone modem port which can be connected to a separate cellphone.

 Two AAA batteries power the unit for 2-3 weeks.

 The cost to connect to the internet was high.

PDA:

P a g e 15 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

1993: Newton Message Pad was the first company to offer PDAs.
It is one of the most popular light weight mobile device.
Its primary input device is “Stylus” looks like small ballpoint but uses pressure instead of ink.

Features:It stands for “Personal Digital Assistant”

It’s a handheld device designed for personal organizer that combines

 Calendar
 Appointment book
 address book
 Calculator
 note pad, PDAs began as pen-based instead of a keyboard for input
 They also incorporated handwriting recognition features.

LAPTOP:

 Designed in 1979 by William Moggridge , and was used by NASA in the space shuttle
program
 It came with a five-inch screen
 Two 5 1/4 floppy drives
 A large collection of bundled software programs
 It contains a battery Pack Can be placed on a lap and cancarried any where.

P a g e 16 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

PARALLEL COMPUTING: (Raúl Rojas, 2000)

Up until recently most computers were serial computers. Such computers had a
single processor chip containing a single processor. Parallel computing is based on
the idea that if more than one task can be processed simultaneously on multiple
processors then a program would be able to run more rapidly than it could on a
single processor. The supercomputers of the 1990s, such as the Cray computers,
were extremely expensive to purchase (usually over $1,000,000) and often
required cooling by liquid helium so they were also very expensive to run. Clusters
of networked computers (eg. a Beowulf culster of PCs running Linux) have been,
since 1994, a much cheaper solution to the problem of fast processing of complex
computing tasks. By 2008, most new desktop and laptop computers contained
more than one processor on a single chip (eg. the Intel "Core 2 Duo" released in
2006 or the Intel "Core 2 Quad" released in 2007). Having multiple processors
does not necessarily mean that parallel computing will work automatically. The
operating system must be able to distribute programs between the processors (eg.
recent versions of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X can do this). An individual
program will only be able to take advantage of multiple processors if the computer
language it's written in is able to distribute tasks within a program between
multiple processors. For example, Open MP supports parallel programming in
FORTRAN and C/C++.

P a g e 17 | 18
 BUSINESS COMPUTER

References
Goel, A. (2010). Computer Fundamentals .

james. (2014). revolution of computer.

Raúl Rojas, U. H. (2000). The First Computers: History and Architectures.

shelly, g. b. (n.d.). introduction to computers.

Williams, M. r. (1997). A history of computing technology.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/generations-of-computer/

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/computer_fundamentals/computer_generations.htm

https://byte-notes.com/five-generations-computers/

https://turbofuture.com/computers/Classification-of-Computers-by-Generation

P a g e 18 | 18