History of Computer

History of Computers - Long, Long Ago 
The Abacus 

• beads on rods to count and calculate
• still widely used in Asia!

History of Computers - Way Back When 
The Slide Rule 1630 

• based on Napier’s rules for logarithms
• used until 1970s

THE WORD "COMPUTER" WAS FIRST USED

The word "computer" was first recorded as being used in 1613 and originally was used to describe a human who performed calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution gave rise to machines whose primary purpose was calculating.

The term computer is derived from the Latin term ‘compute’, this means to calculate or programmable machine.

Computer is an advanced electronic device that takes raw data as input from the user and processes these data under the control of set of instructions (called program) and gives the result (output) and saves output for the future use. It can process both numerical and non-numerical (arithmetic and logical) calculations.

Important Points to Remember

• People used to count and calculate using knots in ropes, notches in sticks, scratches on rocks and drawing lines on ground when there were no devices to compute.
• Abacus is the first known calculating device. It is believed that Chinese invented Abacus around 3000BC.  Abacus has two parts separated by mid-bar. The upper deck is called heaven and lower deck is earth. There are 2 beads in each string in heaven and each has value 5. There are 5 beads on earth where each beads has value 1. Calculation is done by shifting beads towards the midbar.
• Napier’s bones was invented by a Scottish mathematician John Napier in 1617. There are 11 rods in a set of Napier’s bones and numbers are engraved in each rod. The rods are aligned properly to read the result using Napier’s bones. They could be used to multiply and divide numbers.
• John Napier’s principal invention is Logarithm – a branch of mathematics to multiply and divide very large or very small numbers.  Napier invented Logarithm in 1614.
• Slide Rule was invented in 1620 by English mathematician William Oughtred. Slide Rule contains two or more sliding scales which can be properly aligned and the result is obtained by inspection. It could be used to multiply and divide numbers.
• A French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented an Adding Machine called Pascaline in 1642. It can add or subtract numbers by dialing wheels. Blaise Pascal designed this device to help his father who was a tax officer.
• Stepped Reckoner was invented in 1671 by a German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz. Leibnitz refined Pascal’s Adding Machine and made Stepped Reckoner capable to add, subtracts, multiply, divide and even find square root.
• Punched Card was invented by a French textile manufacturer Joseph Jacquard to automate his weaving loom. These cards later used in computers to feed data.
• Charles Babbage designed Difference Engine in 1923 and Analytical Engine in 1933.
• Babbage could not complete his engines mainly due to the lack of financial support and technology at that time. However, the concepts proposed for Analytical engine (input, mill and output) matches completely with the input, processing, output model of modern computers. That’s why Charles Babbage is known as Father of Computing.
• Lady Augusta Ada Lovelace suggested Babbage to use binary numbering system for his Analytical engine and devised a method of using punched cards to calculate which made her The First Programmer. She was known as enchantress of numbers.
• An American census statistician Dr. Herman Hollerith developed a mechanicaltabulatingmachinein1887asthe solution of tabulating problem of 1880s census. He established the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896 to manufacture and sell his inventionwhichlateronconvertedintoInternationalBusinessMachine (IBM)Company.
• Hollerith founded Tabulating Machine Company which later merges with other three companies – InternationalTime Recording Company, Bundy Manufacturing CompanyandComputingScale Corporation to form a new company namedComputing TabulatingRecording (CTR) Corporation. In 1917 the company changes its name to International Business Machine (IBM) Co. Ltd.
• Mark I is the first computer. Howard Aiken and American computer engineer and mathematician Grace Hoper invented it in collaboration with IBM engineers in 1937. It was an electro-mechanical computer with 18000 vacuum tubes. The machine was 51 ft. long, 8 ft. tall and 3 ft. wide.
• Mark I is also known as Harvard-IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator(ASCC).
• ABC (Atanasoff Berry Computer) was built in 1939-42 by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was the first electronic computer.
• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator) is the first general purpose electronic digital computer developed by John William Mauchly and John Presper Eckert in 1946-55. It used decimal numbering system.
• Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann proposed Stored Program Concept in 1945. In his paper he suggested that the data as well as instructions to process those data be stored internally in the machine and binary numbering system be used for machine building.
• EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was invented by John Mauchly and J.P. Eckert in 1946-49. It was the second stored program computer.
• Mourice Wilkes and his team in Cambridge University invented EDSAC (Electronic Delay StorageAutomatic Computer) in 1949. It is the first practical Stored Program computer.
• UNIVAC is the first commercially available general purpose electronic digital computer. It was invented in 1951 by John Mauchly and J.P. Eckert.
• PDP-8 is the first minicomputer introduced by DEC in 1968
• Intel 4004 is the first microprocessor developed by Intel Corporation in 1971. This is also the first commercially available microprocessor.
• 8 inch memory disk (floppy disk) was introduced by IBM in 1971. First sealed hard disk called Winchester was developed in 1972 by IBM.
• MITS Altair 8800 is the first successful personal computer.
• Microsoft Corporation founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. In 1976 Job and Woznik developed the Apple personal computer. In 1984 Apple introduced Macintosh computers.
• Apple – I personal computer was launched in 1976 by Apple Company and IBM PC was launched in 1981 by IBM Corporation.
• In 1981 Microsoft launched “quick and dirty” DOS operating system
• Tim Berner Lee developed World Wide Web and CERN released it in 1991.
• Intel Corporation produced Pentium II in 1997, Pentium III in 1999 and Pentium IV in 2000.
• ----------------------------------**************-------------------------------------------------------
• The first woman according to bible! She compelled Adam to eat the remaining half apple of
  knowled
•  Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words Abax or Abakon (meaning “table”or “tablet”)
• A horizontal bar that separates the two parts of abacus.
•  The method of logarithms was publicly propounded by John Napier in 1614, in a book
  entitled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio (Description of the Wonderful Rule of
  Logarithms). Joost Bürgi independently invented logarithms but published six years after Napier.

Generation of computer

The computers of electronic age are further divided into 5 generation on the basis of technology used by the computer. The different generations are:

      i) First Generation of computers

      ii) Second generation of computers

      iii) Third generation of computers

      iv) Fourth generation of computers

      v) Fifth generation of computers

I) FIRST GENERATION OF COMPUTERS

1) Technology used: Vacuum tube
2) Operating speed: Millisecond range
3) Programming language used: Machine language
4) Memory used
: Primary memory: Magnetic core memory
: Secondary memory: Magnetic drum, Magnetic tape.
5) I/O device:
Punched card as input device, printing device as output device.
6) Use: Simple mathematical calculation.
7) Computers were extremely large in size, and they required special cooling system. e.g.: ENIVAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC, etc.
*first electronic computer-ENIVAC
*first digital computer-UNIVAC

II) SECOND GENERATION OF COMPUTERS:

     1) Technology used: Transistor

     2) Operation speed: Micro second range (10-6 sec)

     3) Programming language used: Assembly language

     4) Memory used

           : Primary memory: Magnetic core memory.

           : Secondary memory: Magnetic drum, Magnetic tape.

     5) I/O: Punched card as input device, Printer as output device

     6) Use: Computers were used for complex scientific calculations.

     7) The size, cost, power requirement, heat generation decreased compared to previous generation.

     8) Processing speed, storage capacity, use of the computer increased compared to previous generation.

E.g.: IBM 1620, IBM 7094, LEO MARK III, etc.

Advantages of transistor over vacuum tube:

   i) One transistor could replace one thousand vacuum tubes.

  ii) Size of a transistor is 1/200 th times of a vacuum tube.

 iii) The power requirement of a transistor is 1/20 th times of a vacuum tube.

 iv) Transistors are more reliable than vacuum tube.

III) THIRD GENERATION OF COMPUTERS

i) Technology used: IC (Integrated Circuit)

ii) Operating speed: Nanosecond range (10 -9 sec)

iii) Programming language used: HLL (High Level Language)

                            Like FORTAN, COBOL, PASCAL, C, C++, etc.

iv) Memory used:

           Primary memory: Semiconductor memory (silicon)

          Secondary memory: Magnetic tape, Magnetic disk like floppy disk, hard disk, etc)

v) I/O device: Keyboard as input device, monitor as output device.

vi) Use: Computers were used for managing population census, bank, insurance company, etc.

vii) Concept of database was developed and used.

viii) Size, cost, power requirement, heat generation decreased compared to previous generations.

ix) Processing speed, storage capacity, use of the computer increased compared to previous generations.

E.g.: IBM 360 series, ICL 900 series, Honeywell 200 series, etc.

*first high level language-FORTAN

IC and its types:

IC is a small silicon chip which contains large number of electronic components like transistor, resistor, capacitor, etc.

The process of creation of IC is called fabrication.

Types of IC on the basis of number of electronic components.

    i) SSI (Small Scale Integration)

           (1-20 components)

   ii) MSI (Medium Scale Integration)

           (21-100 components)

  iii) LSI (Large Scale Integration)

          (101-1000 components)

 iv) VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration)

          (1001-10000 components)

 v) ULSI ( Ultra Large Scale Integration)

          (More than 10000 components)

IV) FOURTH GENERATION OF COMPUTERS:

         1) Technology used:- VLSI (or Microprocessor)

         2) Operating speed:- Pico second range

         3) Programming language used: 4GL (Problem Oriented Language)

         4) Memory used:

                  Primary: Semi-conductor memory

                  Secondary: Magnetic tape, Magnetic Disk, Optical memory (CD/DVD/ Blu ray), Flash

                                    memory(pen drive, memory card)

        5) I/O device:

               Advanced I/O devices like mouse, touch screen, scanner, LCD, LED, color printer, etc are developed.

        6) Use:

               Computers are used for different task in different areas like education, business, hospital, transportation, military, etc.

7) Microcomputers like desktop PC, laptop, notebook, etc, are developed.

8) The popular communication media like internet, email, mobile communication, etc were developed.

9) Advanced, user friendly, web based software, etc are developed.

10) Size, cost, power requirement, heat generation decreased compared to previous generation.

11) Operating speed, storage capacity, use of the computer increased compared to previous generation.

E.g.: IBM desktop PC, HP laptop, Acer notebook, Mac book, etc.

VI) FIFTH GENERATION OF COMPUTERS:

1) Technology to be used:- Bio-chip

2) Operating speed:- Femto second range (10 -15 second) / TIPS

3) Programming language to be used:- Natural language

4) The computers will have AI.

5) The computers will be used in complex calculation where intelligence of the computer is required.

6) The computers will have parallel processing in full fledge.

7) The computers will be based on KIPS (Knowledge based Information Processing System)

Points to Remember

• An international conference in1962 divided the development of computers into five distinct generations based on main electronic component used on them.
• The computers that used vacuum tubes are first generation computers and they range the date 1946 to 1958.
• Vacuum tube diode was first developed by the English physicist Sir John Ambrose Fleming.
• Vacuum tube triode was invented in 1906 by the American engineer Lee De Forest.
• First generation computers were very large, consumed a lot of power producing excessive heat. They had low level of accuracy and reliability.
• Machine language was used to program first generation computers.
• Because thousands of vacuum tubes were used, they produced a lot of heat. Cooling facility was required in any room where computers were installed. Vacuum tubes were burnt out frequently and maintenance cost was very high. This was the main drawback of first generation of computers.
• Second generation computers used transistors as their main electronic component. Transistorwas much smaller, produced almost no heat and thus, they had a tremendousimpact in development of computers and other electronic devices.
• Second generation computers were developed in 1959 to 1964
• Transistors were invented in 1947 by trio Bell Lab scientists – Walter Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Bradford Shockley.
• Assembly language was used to program second generation computers.
• Magnetic tapes and disks were used as main secondary storage media.
• Third generation computers were developed in 1965 to 1974 that used integrated circuits (ICs) also called microchip as main electronic component.
• Transistors were invented by two scientists independently in 1958 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation.
• Monitors and Keyboards were introduced in third generation for input and output of data.
• High level languages were use to program in third generation.
• Fourth generation computers are developed during 1975 to 1990 which used LSI and VLSI microprocessors.
• Invention of microprocessors is the most startling development in fourth generation.
• Personal Computers (PCs) were introduced and are very popular. GUIwas developed in fourth generation.
• The first microprocessor called Intel 4004 was developed by American Intel Corporation in 1971.
• The fifth generation computer project conducted jointly by several Japanese computer manufacturers under the sponsorship of the Japanese government, emphasized artificial intelligence.
• Artificial intelligence is the branch of computer science concerned with designing intelligent computer system that possesses reasoning, learning and thinking capabilities resembling those of a human being.
• Fifth generation computers will use super conductor technology – Gallium Arsenide chips or Biochips.
• Quantum computation and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come.