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History of Computers
The first counting device was used by the
primitive people. They used sticks, stones
and bones as counting tools. As human
mind and
technology improved with time more
computing devices were developed. Some
of the popular computing devices starting
with the first to recent ones are described
below;
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 Merchiston. 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. An
image of this tool is shown below;
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. See the following image;

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;
● ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer)
● EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable
Automatic Computer)
● UNIVACI( Universal Automatic
Computer)
● IBM-701
● 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;
● IBM 1620
● IBM 7094
● CDC 1604
● CDC 3600
● 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;
● IBM-360 series
● Honeywell-6000 series
● PDP(Personal Data Processor)
● IBM-370/168
● 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;
● DEC 10
● STAR 1000
● PDP 11
● CRAY-1(Super Computer)
● 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;
● Desktop
● Laptop
● NoteBook
● UltraBook
● ChromeBook

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