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CS History

The document provides a history of the development of computer science and hardware. It discusses pioneers like Leibniz, Babbage and Lovelace and how they laid foundations for binary systems and algorithms. It then outlines the development of early mechanical calculators and computers in the 1800s and 1900s, leading to the emergence of computer science as a field in the 1950s and 1960s.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
39 views2 pages

CS History

The document provides a history of the development of computer science and hardware. It discusses pioneers like Leibniz, Babbage and Lovelace and how they laid foundations for binary systems and algorithms. It then outlines the development of early mechanical calculators and computers in the 1800s and 1900s, leading to the emergence of computer science as a field in the 1950s and 1960s.

Uploaded by

tirowe8061
Copyright
© © 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

Main article: History of computer science

History of computing

Hardware

Hardware before 1960Hardware 1960s to present

Software

SoftwareSoftware configuration managementUnixFree software and open-source software

Computer science

Artificial intelligenceCompiler constructionEarly computer scienceOperating systemsProgramming


languagesProminent pioneersSoftware engineering

Modern concepts

General-purpose CPUsGraphical user interfaceInternetLaptopsPersonal computersVideo gamesWorld


Wide WebCloud

By country

BulgariaEastern BlocPolandRomaniaSouth AmericaSoviet UnionYugoslavia

Timeline of computing

before 19501950–19791980–19891990–19992000–20092010–20192020–presentmore timelines ...

Glossary of computer science

Category

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) developed logic in a binary number system and has been
called the "founder of computer science".[13]

Charles Babbage is sometimes referred to as the "father of computing".[14]

Ada Lovelace published the first algorithm intended for processing on a computer.[15]

The earliest foundations of what would become computer science predate the invention of the
modern digital computer. Machines for calculating fixed numerical tasks such as the abacus have
existed since antiquity, aiding in computations such as multiplication and division. Algorithms for
performing computations have existed since antiquity, even before the development of sophisticated
computing equipment.[16]
Wilhelm Schickard designed and constructed the first working mechanical calculator in 1623.[17] In
1673, Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated a digital mechanical calculator, called the Stepped Reckoner.
[18] Leibniz may be considered the first computer scientist and information theorist, because of
various reasons, including the fact that he documented the binary number system. In 1820, Thomas
de Colmar launched the mechanical calculator industry[note 1] when he invented his simplified
arithmometer, the first calculating machine strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an
office environment. Charles Babbage started the design of the first automatic mechanical calculator,
his Difference Engine, in 1822, which eventually gave him the idea of the first programmable
mechanical calculator, his Analytical Engine.[19] He started developing this machine in 1834, and "in
less than two years, he had sketched out many of the salient features of the modern computer".[20]
"A crucial step was the adoption of a punched card system derived from the Jacquard loom"[20]
making it infinitely programmable.[note 2] In 1843, during the translation of a French article on the
Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace wrote, in one of the many notes she included, an algorithm to
compute the Bernoulli numbers, which is considered to be the first published algorithm ever
specifically tailored for implementation on a computer.[21] Around 1885, Herman Hollerith invented
the tabulator, which used punched cards to process statistical information; eventually his company
became part of IBM. Following Babbage, although unaware of his earlier work, Percy Ludgate in 1909
published[22] the 2nd of the only two designs for mechanical analytical engines in history. In 1914,
the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo published his Essays on Automatics,[23] and
designed, inspired by Babbage, a theoretical electromechanical calculating machine which was to be
controlled by a read-only program. The paper also introduced the idea of floating-point arithmetic.
[24][25] In 1920, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the arithmometer, Torres
presented in Paris the Electromechanical Arithmometer, a prototype that demonstrated the
feasibility of an electromechanical analytical engine,[26] on which commands could be typed and the
results printed automatically.[27] In 1937, one hundred years after Babbage's impossible dream,
Howard Aiken convinced IBM, which was making all kinds of punched card equipment and was also
in the calculator business[28] to develop his giant programmable calculator, the ASCC/Harvard Mark
I, based on Babbage's Analytical Engine, which itself used cards and a central computing unit. When
the machine was finished, some hailed it as "Babbage's dream come true".[29]

During the 1940s, with the development of new and more powerful computing machines such as the
Atanasoff–Berry computer and ENIAC, the term computer came to refer to the machines rather than
their human predecessors.[30] As it became clear that computers could be used for more than just
mathematical calculations, the field of computer science broadened to study computation in general.
In 1945, IBM founded the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory at Columbia University in New
York City. The renovated fraternity house on Manhattan's West Side was IBM's first laboratory
devoted to pure science. The lab is the forerunner of IBM's Research Division, which today operates
research facilities around the world.[31] Ultimately, the close relationship between IBM and
Columbia University was instrumental in the emergence of a new scientific discipline, with Columbia
offering one of the first academic-credit courses in computer science in 1946.[32] Computer science
began to be established as a distinct academic discipline in the 1950s and early 1960s.[33][34] The
world's first computer science degree program, the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science, began
at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in 1953. The first computer science department
in the United States was formed at Purdue University in 1962.[35] Since practical computers became
available, many applications of computing have become distinct areas of study in their own rights.

See also: History of computing and History of informatics

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