History Of Computer

INTRODUTION:-
Computers have been around a lot longer than many people might
imagine. The word "computer" has changed meaning over decades , but the electronic
computer that we think of in modern times developed throughout the second half of
the 20th century. Its popularity as a house hold item surged in the 1980s following the
arrival of operating systems by Apple and Microsoft that mixed graphics and text,
replacing the text-only systems of the 1970s. By the 1990s, computers incorporated
enhanced communication and multimedia applications and became a nine
dispensable part of daily life for millions of people. Computers and electronics play an
enormous role in today's society, impacting everything from communication and
medicine to science. Although computers are typically viewed as a modern invention
involving electronics, computing predates the use of electrical devices. The ancient
abacus was perhaps the first digital computing device. Analog computing dates back
several millennia as primitive computing devices were used as early as the ancient
Greeks and Romans, the most known complex of which being the Anti kythera
mechanism. Later devices such as the castle clock (1206),slide rule (c. 1624) and
Babbage's Difference Engine (1822) are other examples of early mechanical analog
computers.

The introduction of electric power in the 19th century led to the rise of electrical and
hybrid electro-mechanical devices to carry out both digital(Hollerith punch-card
machine) and analog (Bush’s differential analyzer)
calculation. Telephone switching came to be based on this technology , which led to
the development of machines that we would recognize as early computers. The
presentation of the Edison Effect in 1885 provided the theoretical background for
electronic devices. Originally in the form of vacuum tubes, electronic components
were rapidly integrated into electric devices, revolutionizing radio and later television.
It was in computers however, where the full impact of electronics was felt. Analog
computers used to calculate ballistics were crucial to the outcome of World War II,
and the Colossus and the ENIAC, the two earliest electronic digital computers,
were developed during the war. With the invention of solid-state electronics, the
transistor and ultimately the integrated circuit, computers would become much
smaller and eventually affordable for the average
consumer. Today “computers” are present in nearly every aspect of
everyday life, from watches to automobiles.

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EARLY HISTORY: (Williams, 1997)
“Necessity is the mother of invention”, famous saying formed the basis
of modern computer.

The early history starts from:

ABACUS :
Very first computing device ABACUS also called Soroban invented in 600 BC
was the first computing Device.

NAPIER RODS:
Napier Rods was a card board multiplication calculator. It was designed
in early 17thCentury.

PERCALINE:
1642:
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, invented
the first operating model of mechanical digital calculator using gears, called the
Arithmetic Machine “PASCALINE”
It was used for addition, subtraction, Multiplication and Division.

CHARLEE’S BABBAGE’S DIFFERENCE ENGINE & ANALYTICAL

ENGINE:
Charles is the “The Father of Computers”

1822: His great invention “ Difference engine Difference engine ” was

to perform mathematical calculations.
It was fully automatic and commanded by a fixed instruction program

1842 “The Analytical Engine the Analytical Engine“ Was an automatic machine .It
could do 60 addition per minute The idea of analytical engine didn’t take physical
form but served as a base for modern digital computers

PUNCHED CARD:1890:
Dr. Herman Hollerith introduced the First electromechanical,
punched-card Data-processing machine It was used to compile information for
the1890 U.S. census
His company would eventually become International Business Machines (IBM)This
paper based machine represents the origin of computer database software.

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Z 3:

. 1941:Conrad Zeus from Germany, introduced the first programmable

computer

. It solved complex engineering equations.

. It was also the first to work on the binary system instead of the decimal system.

MODERN HISTORY: (1940’S ONWARD)

THE GENERATION OF COMPUTER: (Goel, 2010)

It used to be quite popular to refer to computers
as belonging to one of several "generations" of computer. These generations are:-

THE FIRST GENERATION (1943-1958):

This generation is often described as starting with the

delivery of the first commercial computer to a business client. This happened in 1951
with the delivery of the UNIVAC to the US Bureau of the Census. This generation lasted
until about the end of the 1950's (although some stayed in operation much longer
than that). The main defining feature of the first generation of computers was that
vacuum tubes were used as internal computer components. Vacuum tubes are
generally about 5-10 centimeter sin length and the large numbers of them required in
computers resulted in huge and extremely expensive machines that often broke down
(as tubes failed).

ABC COMPUTER: “ATANASOFF BERRY COMPUTER”

. 1942: It was developed by Dr John Atanasoff to solve certain mathematical

equations.

. It was the first electronic digital computer

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. It used 45 vacuum tubes for internal logic and capacitor for storage

MARK 1:

. 1944: Mark 1 Computer

. It is also known as Automatic sequence Controlled Calculator

. It is also known as Automatic sequence computer.

. It was first automatic calculating machine designed by Howard A

. Aiken with IBM Corporation.

Features:

.It could perform five basic arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction,multiplication,

division and table reference

. It took approximately 0.3 seconds to add two numbers and 4.5 secondsfor
multiplication of two numbers

Disadvantages:

. It was huge in size

. Complex in design.

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. Very slow.

ENIAC:

. 1946: The ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator)machine was

developed by John W. Mauchly and .J. Presper Eckert, Jr. at the University of
Pennsylvania.

. Reason:
It was developed for military need.

. Features:
1. It used 18,000 vacuum tubes Punch-card input.

2. Weighed thirty tons and occupied a thirty-by-fifty-foot space.

3. It was programmable only by changing the wiring, not through software changes
,but was productive from 1946 to 1955 and was used to compute artillery firingtables

EDSAC:

. 1949: The EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic calculator) wasmade by

the British

. It could do addition in 1500microseconds and multiplication

. In 4000 seconds.

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UNIVAC:

1951: The UNIVAC (universal automatic Computer) was the first digital computer
invented by Muchly and Eckert.

Features:

. It used vacuum tubes

. Government received delivery of first UNIVAC in 1951 after

. U.S. Census processing started.

. UNIVAC I, was the first computer designed and sold commercially, specifically
for business data-processing applications.

. It used a 100 megabyte hard drive.

. It could be used for business and scientific purpose.

THE SECOND GENERATION (1959-1964):

The mid-1950's Bell Labs developed the transistor. Transistors were capable of
performing many of the same tasks as vacuum tubes but were only a fraction of the
size. The first transistor-based computer was produced in 1959. Transistors were
not only smaller, enabling computer size to be reduced, but they were faster, more
reliable and consumed less electricity.

The other main improvement of this period was the development of

computer languages. Assembler languages or symbolic languages
allowed programmers to specify instructions in words (albeit very cryptic words)
which were then translated into a form that the machines could understand (typically
series of 0's and 1's: Binary code).High level languages1 also came into being during
this period. Whereas assembler languages had a one-to-one correspondence between
their symbols and actual machine functions, higher level language commands often

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represent complex sequences of machine codes. Two higher-level languages
developed during this period (FORTRAN2 andCOBOL3) are still in use today though
in a much more developed form.

PDP 1:

.1960:DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) introduced the Programmed DataProces

sor,PDP-1

. The PDP-1 was a main frame computer famous for its low costs.

. The PDP-1 did not contain many advanced peripherals or softwares.

IBM 1400:

. 1961: The IBM 1400 Series were major breakthrough first computer in this
series was IBM 1401.

. IBM 1401 used transistors instead of the vacuum tubes found in previous IBM
computers.

. The system contained many peripherals which included a new high-

speed printer. This print could print 600 lines per minute

THE THIRD GENERATION (1965-1970):

In 1965 the first integrated circuit (IC) was developed in which a complete circuit of
hundreds of components were able to be placed on a single silicon chip 2 or 3 mm
square. Computers using these IC's soon replaced transistor based machines. Again,
one of the major advantages was size, with computers becoming more powerful and
at the same time much smaller and cheaper. Computers thus became accessible to a
much larger audience. An added advantage of smaller size is that electrical signal
shave much shorter distances to travel and so the speed of computers increased.

Another feature of this period is that computer software became much more powerful
and flexible and for the first time more than one program could share the computer's
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resources at the same time (multi-tasking). The majority of programming languages
used today are often referred to as3GL's (3rd generation languages) even though
some of them originated during the 2nd generation.PDP 8:

. The PDP-8 minicomputer was designed &built from 1965 to 1980,

t was the first mass market mini-computer developed for educational purpose.

. It was implemented using four generations of technology: Germanium transistors,SS

I,MSI and LSI

. Additionally it possesses two attributes i.e. continuing interest in its architecture

and implementation.

THE FOURTH GENERATION (1971-PRESENT):

The boundary between the third and fourth generations is not very clear-cut at all.
Most of the developments since the mid 1960's can be seen as part of a continuum of
gradual miniaturization. In 1970 large-scale integration was achieved where the
equivalent of thousands of integrated circuits were crammed onto a single silicon chip.
This development again increased computer performance (especially reliability and
speed) whilst reducing computer size and cost. Around this time the first complete
general-purpose microprocessor became available on a single chip. In1975 Very
Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
took the process one step further. Complete computer central processors could now
be built into one chip. The microcomputer
was born. Such chips are far more powerful than ENIAC and are only about 1cm
square whilst ENIAC filled a large building.

During this period Fourth Generation Languages (4GL's)have come into existence.
Such languages are a step further removed from the computer hardware in that they
use language much like natural language. Many database languages can be described
as 4GL's. They are generally much easier to learn than are 3GL's.

APPLE I APPLE II:

1976:

. Jobs and Wozniak designed and built the Apple I computer.

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Then the following year

1977:

. Introduced the Apple II microcomputer.

. During 1976-77 many other personal computer brand were marketed.

. These both have characteristics of a

PC.IBM PC4:

. 1981: ,IBM tossed its hat into the personal computer, easily fit on a table or desk.

. They were available in taller or narrow size and have common features of
personal computers.

. 1980: IBM offers Bill Gates the opportunity to develop the operating system
called MS-DOS for its new IBM personal computer.

. 1981: The IBM PC was introduced with a 16-bit 4.77 MHz

Intel8088microprocessor and used Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.

APPLE MACINTOSH:

. 1984: Apple Computers launched (during the Super Bowl) the Macintosh, the
first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface.

. It was based on the Motorola68000 microprocessor.

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. Its applications that came as part of the package included Mac Paint, which made
use of the mouse, and MacWrite.

THE FIFTH GENERATION (THE FUTURE):

The "fifth generation" of computers were defined by the Japanese government in

1980 when they unveiled an optimistic ten-year plan to produce the next generation
of computers. This was an interesting plan for two reasons. Firstly, it is not at all really
clear what the fourth generation is, or even whether the third generation had finished
yet. Secondly, it was an attempt to define a generation of computers before they had
come in to existence. The main requirements of the 5G machines was that they
incorporate the features of Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, and Natural
Language. The goal was to produce machines that are capable of performing tasks in
similar ways to humans, are capable of learning, and are capable of interacting with
humans in natural language and preferably using both speech input (speech
recognition) and speech output (speech synthesis). Such goals are obviously
of interest to linguists and speech scientists as natural language and speech processing
are key components of the definition. As you may have guessed, this goal has not yet
been fully realised , although significant progress has been made towards various
aspects of these goals.

DEEP BLUE:

. Deep Blue is a chess playing computer developed by IBM On 11 May1997.

. The machine won a six-game match by two wins to one with three draws against
world champion Garry Kasparov.

. Kasparov accused IBM of cheating and demanded a rematch, but IBM declined
and dismantled Deep Blue. Kasparov beat a previous version of Deep Blue in1996.

TODAY’S COMPUTERS:

PALM COMPUTER:

1999: Palm Computing introduced the Palm VII handheld computer.

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Features:

. 2 MB RAM, and telephone modem port which can be connected to a separate cell
phone.

. Two AAA batteries power the unit for 2-3 weeks.

. The cost to connect to the internet was high.

PDA:

1993: Newton Message Pad was the first company to offer PDAs.

It is one of the most popular light weight mobile device. Its primary input device is
“Stylus” looks like small ballpoint but uses pressure instead of ink.

Features: It stands for “Personal Digital Assistant”

It’s a handheld device designed for personal organizer that combines

. Calendar

. Appointment book

. Address book

. Calculator

. note pad, PDAs began as pen-based instead of a keyboard for input

. They also incorporated handwriting recognition features.

LAPTOP:

. Designed in1979by William Moggridge , and was used by NASA5

in the space shuttle program

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. It came with a five-inch screen

. Two 5 1/4 floppy drives

. A large collection of bundled software programs

. It contains a battery Pack Can be placed on a lap and can carried anywhere.
PARALLEL COMPUTING: (Raúl Rojas, 2000)

Up until recently most computers were serial computers. Such computers had a single
processor chip containing a single processor. Parallel computing is based on the idea
that if more than one task can be processed simultaneously on multiple processors
then a program would be able to run more rapidly than it could on a single processor.
The super computers of the 1990s, such as the Cray computers, were extremely
expensive to purchase (usually over $1,000,000) and often required cooling by liquid
helium so they were also very expensive to run. Clusters of networked computers (e.g.
a Beowulf culster of PCs running Linux) have been, since 1994, a much cheaper
solution to the problem of fast processing of complex computing tasks. By 2008, most
new desktop and laptop computers contained more than one processor on a single
chip (e.g. the Intel "Core 2 Duo" released in 2006 or the Intel "Core 2 Quad" released in
2007). Having multiple processors does not necessarily mean that parallel computing
will work automatically. The operating system must be able to distribute programs
between the processors (e.g. recent versions of Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X
can do this). An individual program will only be able to take advantage of multiple
processors if the computer language it's written in is able to distribute tasks within a
program between multiple processors. For example, Open MP supports parallel
programming in FORTRAN and C/C++.

SUGGESTIONS:

. We have to introduce new component which are capable to consume less

energy.

. We have to made devices by such materials which are capable to do the same
job but are cheaper than the previous ones.

. We have to introduce new technologies to enhance the performance of

computer.

. We have to reduce the size and increase the features of computer.

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. As we know when we stepped up to artificial intelligence we were succeed in
enhancing the abilities of computer, so we have to do the same again but with the
latest technology.

. We have to use non mechanical devices which will be the best in the
performance.

CONCLUSIONS:

At this position we are at the threshold of the technology. There is many more to
discover now. As we stepping up to the upper generation, we are noticing revolution
changes in the technology of computer. As we are leaving mechanical technology
behind, we are going forward to the taste the real purpose of technology. From
vacuum tubes to artificial intelligence we noticed five different modes/generations of
computer. It is clear that mechanical devices are slower than non-mechanical devices
and they are very helpful in the progress of technology. The conclusion is very simple
that the NON-MECHANICAL are providing the true platform of revolution so what we
have to do is just stick with non-mechanicals and latest technologies to discover the
new features and updating the previous one to the next level.

References:

Goel, A. (2010). Computer Fundamentals .

james. (2014). revolution of computer.

Raúl Rojas, U. H. (2000). The First Computers: History and Architectures.

Shelly, g. b. (n.d.). introduction to computers.

Williams, M. r. (1997). A history of computing technology

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