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History of Computer

The first counting devices were simple tools like sticks and bones. Over time, more advanced mechanical calculating devices were developed, including the abacus, Napier's Bones, Pascaline, and the stepped reckoner. Charles Babbage then designed the Analytical Engine and Difference Engine, considered the first computers. Computers have since progressed through five generations, becoming more integrated, powerful, and smaller in size with each generation due to advances like transistors, integrated circuits, and microprocessors.

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4K views5 pages

History of Computer

The first counting devices were simple tools like sticks and bones. Over time, more advanced mechanical calculating devices were developed, including the abacus, Napier's Bones, Pascaline, and the stepped reckoner. Charles Babbage then designed the Analytical Engine and Difference Engine, considered the first computers. Computers have since progressed through five generations, becoming more integrated, powerful, and smaller in size with each generation due to advances like transistors, integrated circuits, and microprocessors.

Uploaded by

Fawad Umer
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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HISTORY OF COMPUTER

The first counting device was used by the primitive people. They used
sticks, stones and bones as counting tools. As human mind and a
technology improved with time more computing devices were developed.

Abacus:
The history of computer begins with the birth of abacus which is believed
to be the first computer. It is said that Chinese invented Abacus around
4,000 years ago. It was a wooden rack which has metal rods with beads
mounted on them. The beads were moved by the abacus operator
according to some rules to perform arithmetic calculations. Abacus is still
used in some countries like China, Russia and Japan .

Napier's Bones:
It was a manually-operated calculating device which was invented by
John Napier (1550-1617) of Murchison. In this calculating tool, he used 9
different ivory strips or bones marked with numbers to multiply and
divide. So, the tool became known as "Napier's Bones. It was also the
first machine to use the decimal point.

Pascaline:
Pascaline is also known as Arithmetic Machine or Adding Machine. It was
invented between 1642 and 1644 by a French mathematician-philosopher
Biaise Pascal. It is believed that it was the first mechanical and automatic
calculator. Pascal invented this machine to help his father, a tax
accountant. It could only perform addition and subtraction. It was a
wooden box with a series of gears and wheels. When a wheel is rotated
one revolution, it rotates the neighboring wheel. A series of windows is
given on the top of the wheels to read the totals.

Stepped Reckoner or Leibnitz wheel: 


It was developed by a German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibnitz in 1673. He improved Pascal's invention to develop this
machine. It was a digital mechanical calculator which was called the
stepped reckoner as instead of gears it was made of fluted drums.

Difference Engine: 
In the early 1820s, it was designed by Charles Babbage who is known as
"Father of Modern Computer". It was a mechanical computer which could
perform simple calculations. It was a steam driven calculating machine
designed to solve tables of numbers like logarithm tables.

Analytical Engine:
This calculating machine was also developed by Charles Babbage in 1830.
It was a mechanical computer that used punch-cards as input. It was
capable of solving any mathematical problem and storing information as a
permanent memory.

Tabulating Machine: 
It was invented in 1890, by Herman Hollerith, an American statistician. It
was a mechanical tabulator based on punch cards. It could tabulate
statistics and record or sort data or information. This machine was used in
the 1890 U.S. Census. Hollerith also started the Hollerith?s Tabulating
Machine Company which later became International Business Machine
(IBM) in 1924.

Differential Analyzer:
It was the first electronic computer introduced in the United States in
1930. It was an analog device invented by Vannevar Bush. This machine
has vacuum tubes to switch electrical signals to perform calculations. It
could do 25 calculations in few minutes.

Mark I:
The next major changes in the history of computer began in 1937 when
Howard Aiken planned to develop a machine that could perform
calculations involving large numbers. In 1944, Mark I computer was built
as a partnership between IBM and Harvard. It was the first programmable
digital computer.

Generations of Computers:
A generation of computers refers to the specific improvements in computer technology
with time. In 1946, electronic pathways called circuits were developed to perform the
counting. It replaced the gears and other mechanical parts used for counting in previous
computing machines. 

In each new generation, the circuits became smaller and more advanced than the
previous generation circuits. The miniaturization helped increase the speed, memory and
power of computers. There are five generations of computers which are described below;

First Generation Computers: 


The first generation (1946-1959) computers were slow, huge and expensive. In these
computers, vacuum tubes were used as the basic components of CPU and memory.
These computers were mainly depended on batch operating system and punch cards.
Magnetic tape and paper tape were used as output and input devices in this generation;

Some of the popular first-generation computers are;

o ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)


o EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
o UNIVACI (Universal Automatic Computer)
o IBM-701
o IBM-650

Second Generation Computers:


The second generation (1959-1965) was the era of the transistor computers. These
computers used transistors which were cheap, compact and consuming less power; it
made transistor computers faster than the first-generation computers.

In this generation, magnetic cores were used as the primary memory and magnetic disc
and tapes were used as the secondary storage. Assembly language and programming
languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, and Batch processing and multiprogramming
operating systems were used in these computers.

Some of the popular second-generation computers are;

o IBM 1620
o IBM 7094
o CDC 1604
o CDC 3600
o UNIVAC 1108

Third Generation Computers:


The third-generation computers used integrated circuits (ICs) instead of transistors. A
single IC can pack huge number of transistors which increased the power of a computer
and reduced the cost. The computers also became more reliable, efficient and smaller in
size. These generation computers used remote processing, time-sharing, multi
programming as operating system. Also, the high-level programming languages like
FORTRON-II TO IV, COBOL, PASCAL PL/1, ALGOL-68 were used in this generation.

Some of the popular third generation computers are;

o IBM-360 series
o Honeywell-6000 series
o PDP (Personal Data Processor)
o IBM-370/168
o TDC-316

Fourth Generation Computers: 


The fourth generation (1971-1980) computers used very large scale integrated (VLSI)
circuits; a chip containing millions of transistors and other circuit elements. These chips
made this generation computers more compact, powerful, fast and affordable. These
generation computers used real time, time sharing and distributed operating system.
The programming languages like C, C++, DBASE were also used in this generation. 

Some of the popular fourth generation computers are;

o DEC 10
o STAR 1000
o PDP 11
o CRAY-1(Super Computer)
o CRAY-X-MP (Super Computer)

Fifth Generation Computers:


In fifth generation (1980-till date) computers, the VLSI technology was replaced with
ULSI (Ultra Large-Scale Integration). It made possible the production of microprocessor
chips with ten million electronic components. This generation computers used parallel
processing hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence) software. The programming
languages used in this generation were C, C++, Java, .Net, etc. 

Some of the popular fifth generation computers are;

o Desktop
o Laptop
o Notebook

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