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Unit 2 History of Computers

The document summarizes the history of computers from early calculating devices like the abacus to modern computers. It describes how early pioneers like Charles Babbage designed mechanical calculating machines in the 18th-19th centuries. The first digital computers were developed in the 1940s, including the ENIAC which used vacuum tubes. Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in the 1950s, leading to smaller second-generation computers. Integrated circuits continued to shrink circuitry, resulting in faster third and fourth-generation computers that could perform millions of calculations per second. The rapid advancement of computer technology was predicted to make 1980s computers obsolete by the early 1990s.

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120 views4 pages

Unit 2 History of Computers

The document summarizes the history of computers from early calculating devices like the abacus to modern computers. It describes how early pioneers like Charles Babbage designed mechanical calculating machines in the 18th-19th centuries. The first digital computers were developed in the 1940s, including the ENIAC which used vacuum tubes. Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in the 1950s, leading to smaller second-generation computers. Integrated circuits continued to shrink circuitry, resulting in faster third and fourth-generation computers that could perform millions of calculations per second. The rapid advancement of computer technology was predicted to make 1980s computers obsolete by the early 1990s.

Uploaded by

Alahin Vera
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SENATI

English for Computer


Equipment Support and
Maintenance
DENIS
TAVARES

SENATI

1
SENATI

Unit 2 History of computers


Let us take a look at the history of the computers that we know today. The
very first calculating device used was the ten fingers of a man’s hands.
This, in fact, is why today we still count in tens and multiples of tens.
Then the abacus was invented, a bead frame in which the beads are
moved from left to right. People went on using some form of abacus well
into the 16th century, and it is still being used in some parts of the world
because it can be understood without knowing how to read.
During the 17th and 18th centuries many people tried to find easy ways of
calculating. J. Napier, a Scotsman, devised a mechanical way of
multiplying and dividing, which is how the modern slide rule works.
Henry Briggs used Napier’s ideas to produce logarithm tables which all
mathematicians use today. Calculus, another branch of mathematics, was
independently invented by both Sir Isaac Newton, an Englishman, and
Leibnitz, a German mathematician.
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Unit 2 History of computers


The first real calculating machine appeared in 1820 as the result of
several people's experiments. This type of machine, which saves a
great deal of time and reduces the possibility of making mistakes,
depends on a series of ten-toothed gear wheels. In 1830 Charles
Babbage, an Englishman, designed a machine that was called ‘The
Analytical Engine’. This machine, which Babbage showed at the
Paris Exhibition in 1855, was an attempt to cut out the human being
altogether, except for providing the machine with the necessary
facts about the problem to be solved. He never finished this work,
but many of his ideas were the basis for building today's computers.
In 1930, the first analog computer was built by an American named
Vannevar Bush. This device was used in World War II to help aim
guns. Mark I, the name given to the first digital computer, was
completed in 1944. The men responsible for this invention were
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Professor Howard Aiken and some people from IBM.

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Unit 2 History of computers
This was the first machine that could figure out long lists of
mathematical problems, all at a very fast rate. In 1946 two
engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, J. Eckert and J.
Mauchly, built the first digital computer using parts called vacuum
tubes. They named their new invention ENIAC. Another important
advancement in computers came in 1947, when John von
Newmann developed the idea of keeping instructions for the
computer inside the computer’s memory.
The first generation of computers, which used vacuum tubes, came
out in 1950. Univac I is an example of these computers which could
perform thousands of calculations per second. In 1960, the second
generation of computers was developed and these could perform
work ten times faster than their predecessors. The reason for this
extra speed was the use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
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Second-generation
generation computers were smaller, faster and more
dependable
computers.than first-generation computers.

Unit 2 History of computers


The third-generation computers appeared on the market in 1965. These
computers could do a million calculations a second, which is 1000 times
as many as first-generation computers. Unlike second-generation
computers, these are controlled by tiny integrated circuits and are
consequently smaller and more dependable. Fourth-generation computers
have now arrived, and the integrated circuits that are being developed have
been greatly reduced in size. This is due to microminiaturization, which
means that the circuits are much smaller than before; as many as 1000 tiny
circuits now fit onto a single chip. A chip is a square or rectangular piece
of silicon, usually from 1/10 to 1/4 inch, upon which several layers of an
integrated circuit are etched or imprinted, after which the circuit is
encapsulated in plastic, ceramic or metal. Fourth-generation computers are
50 times faster than third-generation computers and can complete
approximately 1,000,000 instructions per second.
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Unit 2 History of computers
At the rate computer technology is growing, today’s computers might be
obsolete by 1988 and most certainly by 1990. It has been said that if
transport technology had developed as rapidly as computer technology, a
trip across the Atlantic Ocean today would take a few seconds.

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