History of

Computers
 History

Before computers were developed people used sticks,

stones, and bones as counting tools. As technology
advanced and the human mind improved with time more
computing devices were developed like Abacus,
Napier’s Bones, etc. These devices were used as
computers for performing mathematical computations
but not very complex ones.
 History
Some of the popular computing devices are described
below, starting from the oldest to the latest or most
advanced technology developed:
Abacus
Around 4000 years ago, the Chinese invented the Abacus,
and it is believed to be the first computer. The history
of computers begins with the birth of the abacus.
Structure: Abacus is basically a wooden rack that has
metal rods with beads mounted on them.
Working of abacus: In the abacus, the beads were moved
by the abacus operator according to some rules to
perform arithmetic calculations. In some countries like
China, Russia, and Japan, the abacus is still used by
their people.
 History
Napier’s Bones

Napier’s Bones was a manually operated calculating

device and as the name indicates, it was invented by
John Napier. In this device, he used 9 different
ivory strips (bones) marked with numbers to multiply
and divide for calculation. It was also the first
machine to use the decimal point system for
calculation.
 History
Pascaline

It is also called an Arithmetic Machine or Adding

Machine. A French mathematician-philosopher Blaise
Pascal invented this between 1642 and 1644. It was
the first mechanical and automatic calculator. It is
invented by Pascal to help his father, a tax
accountant in his work or calculation. It could
perform addition and subtraction in quick time. It
was basically a wooden box with a series of gears and
wheels. It is worked by rotating wheel like when a
wheel is rotated one revolution, it rotates the
neighbouring wheel and a series of windows is given
on the top of the wheels to read the totals.
 History
Stepped Reckoner or Leibniz wheel

A German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz in 1673 developed this device by improving
Pascal’s invention to develop this machine. It was
basically a digital mechanical calculator, and it was
called the stepped reckoner as it was made of fluted
drums instead of gears (used in the previous model of
Pascaline).
 History
Difference Engine

Charles Babbage who is also known as the “Father of

Modern Computer” designed the Difference Engine in
the early 1820s. Difference Engine was a mechanical
computer which is capable of performing simple
calculations. It works with help of steam as it was a
steam-driven calculating machine, and it was designed
to solve tables of numbers like logarithm tables.
 History
Analytical Engine

Again in 1830 Charles Babbage developed another

calculating machine which was Analytical Engine.
Analytical Engine was a mechanical computer that used
punch cards as input. It was capable of performing or
solving any mathematical problem and storing
information as a permanent memory (storage).
 History
Tabulating Machine

Herman Hollerith, an American statistician invented

this machine in the year 1890. Tabulating Machine was
a mechanical tabulator that was based on punch cards.
It was capable of tabulating statistics and record or
sort data or information. This machine was used by
U.S. Census in the year 1890. Hollerith’s Tabulating
Machine Company was started by Hollerith and this
company later became International Business Machine
(IBM) in the year 1924.
 History
Differential Analyzer

Differential Analyzer was the first electronic

computer introduced in the year 1930 in the United
States. It was basically an analog device that was
invented by Vannevar Bush. This machine consists of
vacuum tubes to switch electrical signals to perform
calculations. It was capable of doing 25 calculations
in a few minutes.
 History
Mark I

In the year 1937, major changes began in the history

of computers when Howard Aiken planned to develop a
machine that could perform large calculations or
calculations involving large numbers. In the year
1944, Mark I computer was built as a partnership
between IBM and Harvard. It was also the first
programmable digital computer marking a new era in
the computer world.
 Generations of Computers
First Generation Computers

In the period of the year 1940-1956, it was referred to

as the period of the first generation of computers. These
machines are slow, huge, and expensive. In this
generation of computers, vacuum tubes were used as the
basic components of CPU and memory. Also, they were
mainly dependent on the batch operating systems and punch
cards. Magnetic tape and paper tape were used as output
and input devices. For example ENIAC, UNIVAC-1, EDVAC,
etc.
ENIAC-Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
UNIVAC-Universal Automatic Computer
EDVAC- Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
 Generations of Computers
Second Generation Computers
In the period of the year, 1957-1963 was referred to
as the period of the second generation of computers.
It was the time of the transistor computers. In the
second generation of computers, transistors (which
were cheap in cost) are used. Transistors are also
compact and consume less power. Transistor computers
are faster than first-generation computers. For
primary memory, magnetic cores were used, and for
secondary memory magnetic disc and tapes for storage
purposes. In second-generation computers, COBOL and
FORTRAN are used as Assembly language and programming
languages, and Batch processing and multiprogramming
operating systems were used in these computers.
 Generations of Computers
COBOL- Common Business Oriented Language
FORTRAN-Formula Translation
 Generations of Computers
Third Generation Computers

In the third generation of computers, integrated

circuits (ICs) were used instead of transistors(in
the second generation). A single IC consists of many
transistors which increased the power of a computer
and also reduced the cost. The third generation
computers are more reliable, efficient, and smaller
in size. It used remote processing, time-sharing, and
multiprogramming as operating systems. FORTRON-II TO
IV, COBOL, and PASCAL PL/1 were used which are high-
level programming languages.
 Generations of Computers
Fourth Generation Computers

The period of 1971-1980 was mainly the time of fourth

generation computers. It used VLSI(Very Large Scale
Integrated) circuits. VLSI is a chip containing
millions of transistors and other circuit elements
and because of these chips, the computers of this
generation are more compact, powerful, fast, and
affordable(low in cost). Real-time, time-sharing and
distributed operating system are used by these
computers. C and C++ are used as the programming
languages in this generation of computers.
 Generations of Computers
Fifth Generation Computers

From 1980 – to till date these computers are used. The

ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) technology is used
in fifth-generation computers instead of the VLSI
technology of fourth-generation computers.
Microprocessor chips with ten million electronic
components are used in these computers. Parallel
processing hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence)
software are also used in fifth-generation computers.
The programming languages like C, C++, Java, .Net, etc.
are used.

For example Desktop, Laptop, NoteBook, UltraBook, etc.

 FOUR BASIC COMPUTER PERIODS
Information technology has been around for a long
time. Basically, as long as people have been around,
information technology has been around because there
were always ways of communicating through technology
available at that point in time.
There are 4 main ages that divide up the history of
information technology. Only the latest age
(electronic) and some of the electromechanical age
really affects us today, but it is important to learn
about how we got to the point we are at with
technology today.
Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D.)
The pre-mechanical age is the earliest age of
information technology. In 3000 B.C., the Sumerians
in Mesopotamia (what is today southern Iraq) devised
a writing system. The system, called cuneiform, used
signs corresponding to spoken sounds, instead of
pictures, to express words.
When humans first started communicating, they would
try to use language or simple pictures or drawings
known as petroglyths, which were usually carved in
rock. Early alphabets were developed such as the
Phoenician alphabet.
Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D.)
As alphabets became more popular and more people were
writing information down, pens and paper began to be
developed. It started off as just marks in wet clay,
but later paper was created out of papyrus plant. The
most popular kind of paper made was probably by the
Chinese who made paper from rags.
Now that people were writing a lot of information
down, they needed ways to keep it all in permanent
storage. This is where the first books and libraries
are developed. Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept
the earliest "books"" a collection of rectangular clay
tablets, inscribed with cuneiform and packaged in
labeled containers — in their personal "libraries."
Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D.)
The Egyptians kept scrolls - sheets of papyrus
wrapped around a shaft of wood. Around 600 B.C., the
Greeks began to fold sheets of papyrus vertically
into leaves and bind them together.
The dictionary and encyclopedia made their appearance
about the same time. The Greeks are also credited
with developing the first truly public libraries
around 500 B.C.
Also during this period were the first numbering
systems. Around 100A.D. was when the first 1-9 system
was created by people from India. However, it wasn’t
until 875A.D. (775 years later) that the number zero
(0) was invented.
Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D.)
And yes now that numbers were created, people wanted
stuff to do with them so they created calculators. A
calculator was the very first sign of an information
processor. The popular model of that time was the
abacus.
 Mechanical Age (1450 – 1840)
The mechanical age is when we first start to see
connections between our current technology and its
ancestors. A lot of new technologies are developed in
this era as there is a large explosion in interest
with this area. Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany,
invented the movable metal-type printing process in
1450 and sped up the process of composing pages from
weeks to a few minutes.
The printing press made written information much more
accessible to the general public by reducing the time
and cost that it took to reproduce written material.
 Mechanical Age (1450 – 1840)
In the early 1600s, William Oughtred, an English
clergyman, invented the slide rule, a device that
allowed the user to multiply and divide by sliding
two pieces of precisely machines and scribed wood
against each other. The slide rule is an early
example of an analog computer — an instrument that
measures instead of counts.
 Mechanical Age (1450 – 1840)
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, invented the
Pascaline around 1642 which was a very popular
mechanical computer; it used a series of wheels and
cogs to add and subtract numbers. An eccentric
English mathematician named Charles Babbage,
frustrated by mistakes, set his mind to create a
machine that could both calculate numbers and print
the results. In the 1820s, he was able to produce a
working model of his first attempt, which he called
the Difference Engine, the name was based on a method
of solving mathematical equations called the "method
of differences".
 Mechanical Age (1450 – 1840)
Designed during the 1830s by Babbage, the Analytical
Engine had parts remarkably similar to modern-day
computers. For instance, the Analytical Engine was to
have a part called the "store," which would hold the
numbers that had been inputted and the quantities
that resulted after they had been manipulated.
Babbage also planned to use punch cards to direct the
operations performed by the machine — an idea he
picked up from seeing the results that a French
weaver named Joseph Jacquard had achieved using
punched cards to automatically control the patterns
that would be woven into cloth by a loom.
 Mechanical Age (1450 – 1840)
There were lots of different machines created during
this era and while we have not yet gotten to a
machine that can do more than one type of calculation
in one, like our modern-day calculators, we are still
learning about how all of our all-in-one machines
started. Also, if you look at the size of the
machines invented in this time compared to the power
behind them it seems (to us) absolutely ridiculous to
understand why anybody would want to use them, but to
the people living in that time all of these
inventions were huge.
 Electromechanical Age (1840 – 1940)
Now we are finally getting close to some technologies
that resemble our modern-day technology. The
discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key
advance made during this period. Knowledge and
information could now be converted into electrical
impulses. These are the beginnings of
telecommunication.
The discovery of a reliable method of creating and
storing electricity, with a Voltaic Battery, at the
end of the 18th century made possible a whole new
method of communicating information.
 Electromechanical Age (1840 – 1940)
The telegraph was created in the early 1800s. It is
the first major invention to use electricity for
communication purposes and made it possible to
transmit information over great distances with great
speed.
Morse code was created by Samuel Morse in 1835. Morse
devised a system that broke down information (in this
case, the alphabet) into bits (dots and dashes) that
could then be transformed into electrical impulses
and transmitted over a wire (just as today's digital
technologies break down information into zeros and
ones).
 Electromechanical Age (1840 – 1940)
The telephone (one of the most popular forms of
communication ever) was created by Alexander Graham
Bell in 1876. This was followed by the discovery that
electrical waves travel through space and can produce
an effect far from the point at which they
originated. These two events led to the invention of
the radio by Marconi in 1894.
 Electromechanical Age (1840 – 1940)
By 1890, Herman Hollerith, a young man with a degree
in mining engineering who worked in the Census Office
in Washington, D.C., had perfected a machine that
could automatically sort census cards into a number
of categories using electrical sensing devices to
"read" the punched holes in each card and thus count
the millions of census cards and categorize the
population into relevant groups. The company that he
founded to manufacture and sell it eventually
developed into the International Business Machines
Corporation (IBM).
 Electromechanical Age (1840 – 1940)
Howard Aiken, a Ph.D. student at Harvard University,
decided to try to combine Hollerith's punched card
technology with Babbage's dreams of a general-
purpose, "programmable" computing machine. With
funding from IBM, he built a machine known as the
Mark I, which used paper tape to supply instructions
(programs) to the machine tor manipulating data
(input on paper punch cards), counters to store
numbers, and electromechanical relays to help
register results.
 Electronic Age (1940 - Present)
The electronic age is what we currently live in. It
can be defined as the time between 1940 and right
now. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
(ENIAC) was the first high-speed, digital computer
capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range
of computing problems. This computer was designed to
be used by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables.
This machine was even bigger than the Mark 1 taking
up 680 square feet and weighing 30 tons - HUGE. It
mainly used vacuum tubes to do its calculations.
 Electronic Age (1940 - Present)
There are 4 main sections of digital computing. The
first was the era of vacuum tubes and punch cards
like the ENIAC and Mark 1. Rotating magnetic drums
were used for internal storage.
The second generation replaced vacuum tubes with
transistors, punch cards were replaced with magnetic
tape, and rotating magnetic drums were replaced by
magnetic cores for internal storage.
Also during this time high-level programming
languages were created such as FORTRAN and COBOL.
 Electronic Age (1940 - Present)
The third generation replaced transistors with
integrated circuits, magnetic tape was used
throughout all computers, and magnetic core turned
into metal oxide semiconductors. An actual operating
system showed up around this time along with the
advanced programming language BASIC. The fourth and
latest generation brought in CPUs (central processing
units) which contained memory, logic, and control
circuits all on a single chip. The personal computer
was developed (Apple II). The graphical user
interface (GUI) was developed.
 Classifications of Computers
Computers can be classified based on size and
computing power. However, as technology advances,
these classifications tend to overlap as modern
computers have become smaller, yet more powerful, and
relatively cheaper.
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
Four major categories: micro, mini, mainframe and super
computers.
Microcomputers
A microcomputer is a small, low cost digital computer,
which usually consists of a microprocessor, a storage
unit, an input channel and an output channel, all of which
may be on one chip inserted into are or several pc boards.
Microcomputers include desktop, laptop and hand-held
models such as PDAS (personal digital assistants).
Desktop computer
Desktop computer also known as personal computer (pc) is
principally intended for stand alone use by an individual,
desktop computer typically consist of a system unit a
display monitor, a keyboard internal hard disk storage and
other peripheral devices.
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
Some of the major personal computer manufactures are
Apple, IBM, Dell and Hewlett Packard.
Laptop
A laptop is a portable computer that a user can carry
around. Laptops are small computer enclosing all the
basic features of a normal desktop computer.
Hand held computers
A hard-held, also called personal digital assistant
(PDA), is a computer that can conveniently be stored
in a pocket and used while the user is holding it.
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
Minicomputers
The minicomputer is a small digital computer whose
process and storage capacity is lesser than that of a
mainframe, but more than that of micro computer.
Its speed of processing data is in between that of a
mainframe and a micro computes, generally, it is used
as desktop device that is often connected to a
mainframe in order to perform the auxiliary
operations.
Minicomputers are usually multi-user systems, so these
are used in interactive applications in industries,
research organizations colleges and universities.
High-performance workstations with graphics I/o
capability use mini computers.
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
Mainframe computer
A mainframe is an ultra – high performance computer
made for high-volume, processor-intensive computing.
It consists of a high end computer processor, with
related peripheral devices, capable of supporting
large volumes of data processing systems and
extensive data storage and retrieval.
Mainframes are the second largest of the computer
family, the largest being supercomputers.
It is typically used by large businesses and for
scientific purposes.
 CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTERS
Supercomputers
Supercomputers are the special purpose machine, which
are specially designed to maximize the numbers of
FLOPS (floating point operation per second). Any
computer below one gigaflop/sec is not considered a
supercomputer. A supercomputer has the highest
processing speed at a given time for solving
scientific and engineering problems.
Essentially, it contains a number of cpu, that
operate in parallel to make it faster. A
supercomputer can perform 100 PFLOPS. Where 1 PFLOPS
(PETA FLoating point OPerations per Second) = One
quadrillion floating point operations per second.
 Types of Computers
Desktop computers
• are computers designed to be placed on a desk, and
are normally made up of a few different parts,
including the computer case, central processing
unit (CPU), monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Laptop computers
• are battery-powered computer devices whose
portability makes then possible to use almost
anytime, anywhere.
Tablet computers
• are hand-held computers with touch-sensitive screen
for typing and navigation.
 Types of Computers
Smartphones
• are hand-held telephones which can do things that
computers can do, including browsing and searching
the internet and even playing console games.
Wearables
• include fitness trackers and smartwatches that can
be worn throughout the day.
Smart TVs
• are the latest television sets that include
applications present in computers. For example,
videos can be used as a computer monitor and gaming
monitor.
BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
The block diagram of the computer system have the
following three units, each functional
unit corresponds to their basic operations performed
as described in details.
(a) Input unit
(b) Central processing unit
(c) Output unit
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
(a) Input Unit
• Accept data and instructions from the outside world.
• Convert it to a form that the computer can
understand
• Supply the converted data to the computer system for
further processing
• The input unit is used to send information or
instructions or commands to the computer.
The data received from the input unit is immediately
steered to the main memory and then processed.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
The following are some of the input devices.
1. Keyboard
2. Mouse
3. Light pen
4. Joystick
5. Ocr (optical character recognizer)
6. MICR (magnetic ink character recognizer)
7. OMR ( optical mark recognizer)
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
(b) Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• It performs all calculations and all decisions.
• It controls and coordinates all units of the computer
• It interprets instructions of a program
• It stores data temporarily and monitors external
requests.
The CPU is sub-divided into the following sub-system.
1. Control unit
2. Arithmetic and logical unit
3. Memory unit
(a) Primary storage
(b) Secondary storage.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
1. Control unit
The control unit instructs the computer how to carry out
program instructions. It directs the flow of data
between memory and arithmetic logical unit.
The input unit does not know when to receive data and
where to put the data in the storage unit after
receiving it similarly, the control unit instructs the
input unit where to store the data after receiving it
from the user.
In the same way, it controls the flow of data and
instructions from the storage unit to ALU during program
execution, the control unit fetches instructions from
the primary memory, decodes them to determine the
operations required, and then sets up instructions
execution.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
2. Arithmetic And Logical Unit
Arithmetic and logical unit performs all the
arithmetic and logical operations.
Arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction,
multiplication and logical operations, such as
comparisons are performed in ALU.
All calculations are performed in the arithmetic and
logical unit (ALU) of the computer, ALU also does the
comparisons and take decision.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
3. Memory unit
Memory is the part of computer which holds data for
processing and other information it is also called as
main memory or primary memory.
A device that stores program instructions or data
used by the cpu when performing a given function.
(a) Primary storage
The primary storage is also called as “main memory”
stores and access information very fast. This is
generally used to hold the program being currently
executed in the computer, the data being received
from the input unit, the intermediate and final
results of the program.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
Primary storage is also known as system memory,
internal, temporary and “RAM”
▪ Installed on the main computer board (motherboard)
▪ Typically comprised of ICs (integrated circuits)
▪ Fast access – usually in the order of nano seconds
b) Secondary storage
The secondary storage is also known as Auxiliary Storage
it may store several programs, documents, databases etc.
The program that we want to run on the computer is first
transferred to the primary memory before it can run.
Similarly, after running the program if it needs to save
the result, we will transfer them to the secondary
storage.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
The secondary memory is slower and cheaper than the
primary memory. Some of the commonly used secondary
memory devices are Floppy diskette, Zip diskette, Hard
disk and Magnetic disks and Tapes etc.

(c) Output unit

Devices used to get the response or result of a process
from the computer is called output unit.
The output unit of a computer provider the information
and results of a computation to the outside world.
Computers do not work in the decimal system, they work in
the binary system. Therefore if required, the output unit
also converts the binary data into a form that users can
understand.
 BASIC COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
Commonly used output devices are.
▪ Visual display unit (VDU) or monitor
▪ Printer
▪ Computer output microfilm
▪ Plotter