History of Computers Images
History of Computers Images
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
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;
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.
o IBM 1620
o IBM 7094
o CDC 1604
o CDC 3600
o UNIVAC 1108
o IBM-360 series
o Honeywell-6000 series
o PDP(Personal Data Processor)
o IBM-370/168
o TDC-316
o DEC 10
o STAR 1000
o PDP 11
o CRAY-1(Super Computer)
o CRAY-X-MP(Super Computer)
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.