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History of Computers Images

history of computers

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
411 views39 pages

History of Computers Images

history of computers

Uploaded by

hyynrv
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ABACUS

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 BONE
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.
NAPIER’S BONES
PASCALINE
PASCALINE
Pascaline is also known as Arithmetic
Machine or Adding Machine. It was
invented between 1642 and 1644 by a
French mathematician-philosopher
Blaise 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.
Stepped Reckoner or
Leibnitz wheel
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.
The step reckoner (or
stepped reckoner) was a
digital mechanical calculator
invented by the German
mathematician Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz around 1673
and completed in 1694. The
name comes from the
translation of the German
term for its operating
mechanism, Staffelwalze,
meaning "stepped drum". It
was the first calculator that
could perform all four
arithmetic operations.
Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz
Difference Engine
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.
CHARLES BABBAGE
SLIDE RULE
SLIDE RULE

Slide rule, a device consisting of


graduated scales capable of relative
movement, by means of which simple
calculations may be carried out
mechanically. Typical slide rules
contain scales for multiplying,
dividing, and extracting square roots,
and some also contain scales for
calculating trigonometric functions
and logarithms. The slide rule
remained an essential tool in science
and engineering and was widely used
in business and industry until it was
superseded by the portable electronic
calculator late in the 20th century.
Analytical Engine
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 .
JACQUARD’S LOOM
JACQUARD’S LOOM
Invented by Joseph Jacquard and
demonstrated in 1801, the Jacquard
Loom is an attachment for powered fabric
looms. It uses a chain of punch cards to
instruct the loom on how to make
intricate textiles. For example, a loom
could have hundreds of cards with holes
corresponding to hooks that can be
raised or lowered to make a textile
brocade.
The Jacquard Loom is important to
computer history because it is the first
machine to use interchangeable punch
cards to instruct a machine to perform
automated tasks. Having a machine that
could perform various tasks is similar to
today's computer programs that can be
programmed to perform different tasks.
TABULATING MACHINE
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.
Herman Hollerith
Differential Analyzer
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
MARK 1
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;

o ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)


o EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
o UNIVACI( Universal Automatic Computer)
o IBM-701
o 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;

o IBM 1620
o IBM 7094
o CDC 1604
o CDC 3600
o 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;

o IBM-360 series
o Honeywell-6000 series
o PDP(Personal Data Processor)
o IBM-370/168
o 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;

o DEC 10
o STAR 1000
o PDP 11
o CRAY-1(Super Computer)
o 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;


o Desktop
o Laptop
o NoteBook
o UltraBook
o ChromeBook
VACUUM TUBES DEVICES
Alternatively referred to as an electron tube or
valve and first developed by John Ambrose
Fleming in 1904. The vacuum tube is a glass
tube that has its gas removed, creating a
vacuum. Vacuum tubes contain electrodes for
controlling electron flow and were used in early
computers as a switch or an amplifier.

Vacuum tubes were also used in radios,


televisions, radar equipment, and telephone
systems during the first half of the 1900s. In the
1950s, the transistor started to replace the
vacuum tube. As computing devices started to
become smaller in size, transistors were more
ideal to use due to their smaller size as well.
Vacuum tubes were larger in size and did not fit
well for smaller computing devices, thus leading
to their reduced usage. Today, vacuum tubes are
primarily used in high-end audio equipment,
preferred by some audiophiles as an alternative
to digital systems.
TRANSISTORS

Semiconductor Device
Transistor
The transistor was developed by John
Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William
Shockley at the Bell Laboratories on
December 23, 1947. The transistor (short for
"transfer resistance") is made up of
semiconductors. It is a component used to
control the amount of current or voltage or
used for amplification/modulation or
switching of an electronic signal.
From 1955 onwards transistors replaced
vacuum tubes in computer designs, giving
rise to the "second generation" of computers.
Initially the only devices available were
germanium point-contact transistors, which
although less reliable than the vacuum tubes
they replaced had the advantage of
consuming far less power. The first
transistorized computer was built at the
University of Manchester and was
operational by 1953; a second version was
completed there in April 1955
INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
Integrated circuits
Integrated circuits (IC's) are used in
third generation computers. The
integrated circuit was invented by Jack
Kilby and Robert Noyce. The
development of the integrated circuit was
the hallmark of the third generation of
computers. Transistors were
miniaturized and placed on silicon chips,
called semiconductors, which drastically
increased the speed and efficiency of
computers.
Instead of punched cards and
printouts, users interacted with third
generation computers through keyboards
and monitors and interfaced with an
operating system, which allowed the
device to run many different applications
at one time with a central program that
monitored the memory. Computers for
the first time became accessible to a mass
audience because they were smaller and
cheaper than their predecessors.
The electronic circuit formed by
constructing electronic components like
transistor, resistor and capacitor on a
small piece of semiconducting material
is called integrated circuit. Integrated
circuit is also called as chip or
microchip. Large number of transistors
is placed on a single chip.
Microprocessor
The microprocessor it is the
fourth generation of computers,
as thousands of integrated
circuits were built onto a single
silicon chip. The first
generation filled an entire room
could now fit in the palm of the
hand. The Intel 4004 chip, it
was the world's first
microprocessor and developed
in 1971. Located all the
components of the computer—
from the central processing
unit and memory to
input/output controls—on a
single chip.

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