CHAPTER1 : Part 2

INTRODUCTION & HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

UNIVERSITI TENAGA NASIONAL

“Generates
 Module Objectives
• At the end of the module, students should be able to:
• appreciate and understand the history of computers.
• describe the generations of computer design leading up to
the present
• describe the story of personal computer development
• characterize the relative size, scope, uses and variety of
available computer systems.
 Computer History - The Early Days
• 1822 - Charles Babbage proposed a machine to calculate
tables for logarithms and trigonometric functions, called the
Difference Engine.
• Before completing the machine, he invented in 1833 the more
sophisticated Analytic Engine that uses punch cards to control
the arithmetic calculations
• The machine is programmable, has storage capabilities, and
control flow mechanisms – it is a general purpose computer.
• The Analytic Engine was never completed.
• Augusta Ada Lovelace writes the first program for the
Analytical Engine (to calculate Bernoulli numbers).
• Some consider her as the first programmer.
Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine
Computer History - The Early Days

• The calculation devices weren’t a commercial success –

pencil and paper was cheap and fast enough.
• The 1890 US census demanded larger data processing
power, because more questions were asked.
• Hermann Hollerith provided the data processing
equipment.
• Hollerith’s company later became a core part of IBM.
Hollerith’s Machine

Hollerith Electric Tabulator, US Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 1908,

Photograph by Waldon Fawcett. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-
45687.
Analog Computing ???

• The digital computing methods of Babbage and Hollerith

did not lead directly to the modern computer.
• In fact, analogue computing devices were much more
common in 1900-1930, especially for scientific
computations.
• In 1930, Vannevar Bush (MIT) constructed a large
differential analyzer that was capable of integration and
differentiation.
• The common conception was that analogue computing
has many advantages over digital computation (and one
finds constructions of analogue computers until the
1960’s).
 The Start of the Modern Era
• Atanasoff Berry Computer
(ABC)
• an experimental machine
for solving systems of
simultaneous linear
equations
• 1938-42 
Iowa State University by
Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff
and Clifford E. Berry.
• Use electronics for
arithmetical calculation
• described as the first
"electronic digital
computer".

•However, it was not a stored program machine, which distinguishes it

from later, more general machines,
 The Start of the Modern Era
• 1944 - Howard Aiken funded by IBM built Mark I 8 feet
high and 55 feet long, made of streamlined steel and glass
• the first large scale automatic digital computer in the USA
 The Start of the Modern Era

• 1946 – Dr. John Mauchly •1950 – John Von Neumann

• ENIAC - Electronic Numerical •EDVAC - Electronic Discrete Variable
Integrator And Computer Computer
 The Beginning of the Computer Age
• The computer age is remarkable where
so much has happened in short period
of time.
• Four generations of technology
happened in about 55 years.
• The timing of each generation is
according to the beginning of
commercial delivery of the hardware
technology
• The beginning of the commercial
computer age can be dated to June 14,
1951.

• This was the day the first UNIVAC--Universal Automatic Computer was
delivered to a client, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, for use in tabulating
the previous year's census.
Computer Generations - The 1stGen
The First Generation, 1951–
1958
The Vacuum
Tube
 Electronic tubes the size of light bulbs used as the internal computer
components
 Generated a great deal of heat problems in temperature regulation
and climate control
 Subject to frequent burnout
 People operating the computer did not know whether the problem was
in the programming or in the machine.
 Language used in programming was machine language, which uses
numbers making programming the computer difficult and time-
consuming.
Computer Generations - The 1stGen
The First Generation, 1951–1958: The Vacuum
Tube
Computer Generations - The 2ndGen
The Second Generation, 1959–
1964
The
Transistor
 Bell Lab scientists J. Bardeen, H. W. Brattain, and W. Shockley
developed the transistor
 Transistors much smaller than vacuum tubes, needed no warm-up
time, consumed less energy, and were faster and more reliable.
Computer Generations - The 2ndGen

A replica of the first

transistor invented
at Bell Labs,
December 23, 1947
 Computer Generations - The 2ndGen
• During this generation another important development was the move
from machine language to assembly languages, also called symbolic
languages
• After the development of symbolic languages came high-level languages,
such as FORTRAN (1954) and COBOL (1959).
• 1962 the first removable disk pack was marketed. Disk storage
supplemented magnetic tape systems and enabled users to have fast
access to desired data.
• Throughout this period computers were being used principally by
business, university, and government organizations. They had not
filtered down to the general public.
Computer Generations - The 3rdGen
The Third Generation, 1965–
1970
The Integrated Circuit
(IC)
 An integrated circuit (IC) is a complete electronic circuit on a small
chip of silicon which is a semiconductor.
 In 1965 integrated circuits began to replace transistors in computers.
 The chips were hailed as a generational breakthrough because they had
desirable characteristics:
 reliability,
 compactness
 low cost.
 The beginning of the third generation was trumpeted by the IBM 360
series.
Computer Generations - The 3rdGen

An integrated circuit (IC) Intel 4004 IC

 Computer Generations - The 4thGen
The Fourth Generation, 1971 - Present:
The
Microprocessor
• Perhaps the most far-reaching contribution of the 360 series was IBM's
decision to unbundled the software, that is, to sell the software separately
from the hardware.
• This approach led to the creation of today's software industry. Software
became more sophisticated during this third generation.
• Through the 1970s computers gained dramatically in speed, reliability, and
storage capacity,
• The fourth generation was, in fact, an extension of third-generation
technology.
• A microprocessor contains millions of tiny transistors
 Computer Generations - The 4thGen
• The general-purpose processor-on-a-chip, also known as the
microprocessor, became commercially available in 1971.
• Computer power become more apparent with the use of the
microprocessor.
• Common applications of the microprocessor 
• digital watches
• pocket calculators
• personal computers
• virtually every machine in the home or business cars, copy machines,
television sets, bread-making machines, etc
• Computers today are 100 times smaller than those of the first
generation, and a single chip is far more powerful than ENIAC.
Do You Know ???

The first
microprocessor, the
Intel 4004 with
2300 transistors
and 3mmx4mm size,
was introduced in
1971.
Do You Know ???

•The Pentium 4 was

introduced in 2000.
•It had 42 million
transistors and a
1,400-1,500MHz
clock speed.
•The die size was
224mm2
 Computer Generations - The 5thGen
The Fifth Generation:
Onwards
• Term coined by the Japanese to describe the powerful, "intelligent"
computers they wanted to build by the mid-1990s.
• The term evolved to encompass elements in several research fields
related to computer intelligence: artificial intelligence, expert systems,
and natural language.
• The true focus is connectivity where the massive industry effort to
permit users to connect their computers to other computers.
• The concept of the information superhighway has captured the
imaginations of both computer professionals and everyday computer
users.
Computer Generations