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4 Basic Computing Periods

The document outlines four basic periods of computer history: 1) Pre-mechanical Age (3000 BC - 1450 AD) - Development of writing systems, alphabets, paper, books, early numbering systems, and the abacus calculator. 2) Mechanical Age (1450-1840) - Gutenberg's printing press enabled the first information explosion. Early mechanical calculators were developed. 3) Electromechanical Age (1840-1940) - Foundations of telecommunications, Boolean algebra, punched cards, tabulating machines, calculators, and vacuum tubes. 4) Electronic Age (1941-present) - The first programmable computer (Z3), stored program computer (Mark I

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Jane Ricad
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104 views30 pages

4 Basic Computing Periods

The document outlines four basic periods of computer history: 1) Pre-mechanical Age (3000 BC - 1450 AD) - Development of writing systems, alphabets, paper, books, early numbering systems, and the abacus calculator. 2) Mechanical Age (1450-1840) - Gutenberg's printing press enabled the first information explosion. Early mechanical calculators were developed. 3) Electromechanical Age (1840-1940) - Foundations of telecommunications, Boolean algebra, punched cards, tabulating machines, calculators, and vacuum tubes. 4) Electronic Age (1941-present) - The first programmable computer (Z3), stored program computer (Mark I

Uploaded by

Jane Ricad
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Basic Periods of Computer

History
Four Basic Periods of
Computer History

1. Pre-mechanicalAge
2. MechanicalAge
3. ElectromechanicalAge
4. ElectronicAge
Pre-Mechanical Age
(3000B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
Writing andAlphabets
• Petroglyths - signs or simple figures carvedin rock
Cave painting from Lascaux, France
(15,000-10,000 B.C.)
Writing andAlphabets
• Ideographs -symbols to represent ideas and
concept

Mayan Ideograph
Writing andAlphabets
• Cuneiform –the first true written language and the
first real information system.
Writing andAlphabets
• Cuneiform
- At around 2000 BC, the Phoenicianscreated symbols
that expressed single syllables and consonants (the first
true alphabet)
- Greekadopted the Phoenician alphabet and added
vowels
- Romansgave the letters Latin name to create the
alphabet we use today.
Papers and Pens
• Sumerians • Egyptians • Chinese
- stylus and wet clay - reed and papyrus - paper from rags
plant (2600 BC) (100AD)
Books and Libraries
(permanent storage device)
• Mesopotamia
- religious leaders kept the earliest book

• Egyptians
- kept the scrolls

• Greeks
- (600 BC) fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves and
bind them together
First Numbering System
• Egyptians
- Vertical lines ( | ) for numbers 1 –9
- U or O means 10
- coiled rope means 100
- lotus blossom for 1000

• Hindus
- (100 –200 AD) 9 digit numbering
- 875 AD the concept of zero was developed
The First Calculator
• Abacus
- man’s first recorded adding machine
- invented in Babylonia and popularized in China
(1450 – 1840)
First Information Explosion
• Johann Guttenberg
- Movable metal-type printing process in 1450
The First General-Purpose Computers
• John Napier [1614]
- a Baron of Merchiston, Scotland who invented Napier’s
Bones
- Napier’s Bones -manually-operated calculating device
for calculation of products and
quotients of numbers.
The First General-Purpose Computers
• Wilhelm Shickard [1623]
- a professor at University of Tubingen, Germany, who
invented the first mechanical calculator that can work with
six digits and can carries digits across columns.
The First General-Purpose Computers
• William Oughtred [1575 –1660]
- invented the slide rule.

• Blaise Pascal [1642]


- invented the Pascaline.
- Pascaline(made of clock gears
and levers) that could solve
mathematical problems like addition and subtraction.
The First General-Purpose Computers
• Gottfried Leibniz [1716]
- invented Stepped Reckoner
that could multiply 5 digit and
12 digit numbers yielding up to 16 digit numbers.

• Joseph-Marie Jacquard [1801]


- developed the automatic loom
(weaving loom) that was
controlled by punched cards.
The First General-Purpose Computers
• Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar
[1820]
- developed Arithmometer(the first
mass produced calculator).

• Charles Babbage
- invented the Difference Engine (1821) and Analytical
Engine(1832).
- considered as Father of Modern Computer
The First General-Purpose Computers
Difference Engine (1821) and Analytical Engine(1832).

• Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace Byron [1842]


- the first computer programmer
Electromechanical Age
(1840 - 1940)
The Beginning of Telecommunications
• Voltaic Battery
- first electric battery known as voltaic pile
- invented by Alessandro Volta

• Telegraph
- Samuel F.B. Morse ,his version of an Electromagnetic
Telegraph (1832)
The Beginning of Telecommunications
• Telephone
- Alexander Graham Bell (1879) –
developed the first working telephone

• Radio
- Guglielmo Marconi (1894) discovered that electrical
waves travel through space and
can produce and effect far from the
point at which it originated
The Beginning of Telecommunications
• Boolean Algebra
- George Boole (1852) –developed the binary algebra
known as Boolean Algebra
Electromechanical Computing
• Tabulating Machine
- completed by Pehrand Edward Scheutz
- capable of processing fifteen digit numbers,
printing out result and rounding off to eight digits

• Comptometer
- created by Dorr Felt (1885)
- a key driven adding and subtracting
calculator
Electromechanical Computing
• Punched Card
- provided computer programmers with a new way to put
information into their machines
- invented by Herman Hollerith, also called as the Father of
Information Processing.
- He founded also the Tabulating Machine Company,
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
Electromechanical Computing
• Millionaire
- invented by Otto Shweiger.
- the first efficient four function calculator.

• Vacuum tubes
- invented by Lee de Forest .
- important for it provided electrically controlled switch.
Electronic Age
• Konrad Zuse [1941]
- built the first programmable computer called Z3.

• Howard Aiken [1942]


- developed Mark Ithe first stored program computer.

• John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry [1942]


- completed the first all electronic computer called ABCor
Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

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