COLLEGE OF ELECTRICAL AND

ADDIS MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ABABA DEPARTMENT OF SOFTWARE
SCIENCE ENGINNERING ASSIGNMENT OF

AND GENERATIONS OF COMPUTERS

– ZERO GENERATION
TEHNOL
OGY
UNIVERS
ITY

Submitted to: Instractor Aderaw Semma

Submission date: Dec 18,2017G.C

GROUP MEMBERS ID NUMBER

1. ELISABETH SOLOMON ETS 0432/10

 2. EMEBET SHIFERAW ETS 0440/10
3. ERMIAS MENALE ETS 0457/10
4. FEVEN TSIGE ETS 0513/10
5. GELILA MAMO ETS 0546/10

Preface
1. I have read the truest computer of times and best Arithmetician that ever (sir
breathed ) and he rescues the days in to a short number (1613)
2. one who calculates (1640)
3. calculating machine
4. programmable digital electronic computer (1937)

The above statements are articles taken from the different dictionaries to define the term
computer. The years in the brackets indicates when the corresponding article was written.
The first statement is what the oxford dictionary confirms the term computer was defined
for the first time. It means or it refers to “a person who carried out calculation or
computation “. The word (computer) continues with same meaning until the middle of the
20th century.

The remaining 3 statements are articles the online Etymology dictionary wrote down to
define the term “computer. “

We can actually see how the term computer is defined differently from one time to
another time. If we for example consists the first article it with the word a person …” It
refers to person which is different from the way we define computer today we take a
computer to refer to a machine so this means that computers weren’t familiar at that time. If
we again take the forth statement when computer is programmable. “ The new thing added
here to the preceding statement is the word “programmable” this how us a new computer
type which differs from the preceding computer by being “programmed” has emerged some
years before the edition of the dictionary time (1937). So this can briefly indicates us that
there was being used from time to time. That is exceed computers had changes both in the
hardware make up from the precede ones. In computer terminology, this change both in the
hardware and the software makeup from the precede ones. In computer terminology, this
change both in the hardware and software makeup is referred to as generation.

In the next documented papers of about 15 pages, we have written all about this old
generation. We have mentioned the best known machines or devices of the generations and
written some details about each device. The written material begins with introducing the
zero generation and ends with comparing the zero generation computers of subsequent
generation – the first generation and describing how these computers contribute to the
evolution of computers contribute to the evolution of modern computers.

ACKNOWLEGMENT

We, the group members, would like to thank our lecturer Instructor
Aderaw Semma , for giving us the opportunity to acquire new knowledge
about zero generation computers. Working on this assignment has widened
our horizon on generation of computers, more importantly zero generation
computers. So for the awareness that was created due to this assignment we
thank you!

The group members!

What are Zero Generations Computers?

 The zeroth generation of computers started in 1642 – 1946.
 Back before the electric powered, slim microprocessors and sleek tablets of today
and even before the massive, room dominating computers that characterized the 20th
century, there was a different type of computers, an earlier generation.
 It was called the Zeroth generation and its name shows the uncertainty of it. The
zeroth generation unlike the rest is not exactly defined. It can hold within every non
electric powered, mechanical computing device created before the first generation
which could do varies functions.
 However that definition if too vague so for the purpose of this report we will only
be covering the notable ones.
 1.BLASÉ PASCAL CALCULATING DEVICE
(1623-1662)
In 1640, Blasé Pascal, the 18 year old son of a French tax collector, started developing a
device to help his father with his duties to add sums of money. The first operating model,
what he called a numerical wheel calculator, was introduced in 1642. The brass rectangular
box also called a Pascaline, used eight movable dials to add numbers up to eight figures
long.
The device could only add and subtract while multiplication and division operations
were implemented by performing a series of addition or subtraction. But in fact the
arithmetic machine could only add because subtractions were performed using complement
techniques in which the number to be subtracted is first converted into its complement and
then added to the first number.
Interestingly enough, modern computers employ similar complement techniques.

2. POLYMATH GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ CALCULATING

DEVICE(1646-1716)
The great polymath Gottfried Leibniz a German mathematician and philosopher was one
of the first men, who dreamed for a logical (thinking) device. Even more Leibniz tried to
combine principles of arithmetic with the principles of logic and imagined the computer as
something more of a calculator—as a logical or thinking machine.

He discovered also that computing processes can be done much easier with a binary
number coding. He even describes a calculating machine which works via the binary
system: a machine without wheels or cylinders just using balls, holes, sticks and canals for
the transport of the balls.
He even improved the pascaline by creating a machine that could also multiply.

                         

3.JOSEPH MARIE JACQUARD CALCULATING DEVICE

(1752-1834)

Joseph Marie Jacquard was a French silk weaver and inventor, that improved the original
punched card design of Jacques de Vaucanson's loom of 1745, to invent the Jacquard loom
mechanism in 1804-1805.

Jacquard's loom mechanism is controlled by recorded patterns of holes in a string of cards,

and allows, what is now known as, the Jacquard weaving of intricate patterns.

                          
 4.CHARLES XAVIER CALCULATING DEVICE (1785-
1870)
Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar invented the first calculating machine to be
produced in large numbers in 1785-1870. This invention came about in France in 1820 as
part of a national competition and the machine was called the Arithometer.

                                    

The Arithometer was an early and large version of a pocket calculator that occupy
the best part of a desk and by 1845 there was a large, commercially successful industry
involved in the manufacture of these machines.it could perform the four basic arithmetic
operations.
His mechanical calculator, the arithometer presented a more practical approach to
computing because it could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Because of its enhanced
versatility, the arithometer was widely used until the First world war.

5.CHARLES BABBAGE CALCULATING DEVICE

(1791-1871)
As long as the computer consisted of only gears and levers, its potential use was limited.
The real beginnings of computers as we know them today, however, lay with an English
mathematics professor, Charles Babbage and he’s credited as the “Father of Computing”.

                                       
In Babbage's time, the complex mathematical tables used by ship's captains to navigate the
seas, and also intricate computations, had to be calculated by teams of mathematicians who
were called computers. No matter how painstaking these human computers were, their
tables were often full of errors.

Babbage wanted to create a machine that could automatically calculate a mathematical

chart or table in much less time and with more accuracy.
His mechanical computer, designed with cogs, gears and powered by steam, was capable of
performing multiple tasks by simple reprogramming or changing the instructions given to
the computer.
6. LADY AUGUSTA ADA (1816-1852)
Lady Augusta Ada king-novel, countess of loveless was an English mathematician and
writer also known mainly for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early
mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine.
She was the first to recognize that the machines had applications beyond pure
calculation, and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine,
as a result she is regarded as the first to recognize the full potential of a computing machine
and was also the first computer programmer.

Ada was a US governmental developed programming language. The standard was

originally known as Ada83, but this is now obsolete, as it was recently “overhauled” and
reborn as Ada95. This is now the preferred standard and implementation of the Ada
programming language.

7.HERMAN HOLLERITH (1860-1929)

 He developed the punched card system to store data in 1890. The punched card system
was an important movement in the development of the computer.
It consisted of

 a tabulator
 a sorter electronically controlled by the tabulators counter
 And a device used to punch data on to cards.

The tabulator read the presence or absence of holes in the cards by using spring mounted
nails that passed through the holes to make electrical connections.

The tabulator was very basic, but it also displayed a feature that still characterizes the
computer of today. It was able to automate and speed up tasks that would take humans
much, much longer to do.

His idea was totally different from the principle already known by Babbage or by
Colmar. He used the working method of a punch cutter on the train. His calculator was so
successful that he started his own business to sell his product. Later the company was called
International Business Machines (IBM). However the original cards could not be used for
complicated calculations.

8. GEORGE BOOLE INVENTION (1847)

George Boole an English mathematician sets up a system called Boolean algebra, where in
logical problems is solved like algebraic problems. Boole's theories will form the bedrock of
computer science.

The creation of algebra of symbolic logic was the work of another mathematical prodigy
and British individualist Bertrand Russell. As Bertrand Russell remarked seventy years
later, Boole invented pure mathematics.

The design of circuits is arranged by logical statements and these statements return Zero (0)
or one (1). This is called binary language.

9. ATANASOFF BERRY COMPUTER(1938-1942)

Atanasoff Berry Computer is the name given to an experimental machine for solving
systems of simultaneous linear equations, developed in 1938-42 at Iowa State University by
Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry. It is sometimes referred to by its initials,
ABC.
 The Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC) - was the 1st automatic electronic digital
computer, an early electrical digital computing device that has remained somewhat obscure.
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer, constructed in the basement of the Physics building at
Iowa State University, took over two years to complete due to lack of funds. The prototype
was first demonstrated in November of 1939. The computer weighed more than seven
hundred pounds (320 kg). It contained approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) of wire.

10. MARK-I, ASCC (1944)

The Harvard Mark I designed primarily by Prof. Howard Aiken launches today's computer
industry. The Mark I is the world's first fully automatic computer and the first machine to
fulfill Babbage's dream. 1945
A programmable, electromechanical calculator designed by professor Howard Aiken. Built
by IBM and installed at Harvard in 1944, it strung 78 adding machines together to perform
three calculations per second. It is also known as ASCC (Automatic Sequence Controlled
Calculator). It was 51 feet long, weighed five tons and used paper tape for input and
typewriters for output. Made of 765,000 parts, it sounded like a thousand knitting needles

The Mark I worked in decimal arithmetic, not binary, but it could go for hours without
intervention.
                                            

Advantage

 Didn’t need electricity until the final stage of zero generation.

 It was the first made calculator it supports addition n subtraction.
 It was simpler to build.
 It can help teach complete beginners about computers and how to use them.
 It can help with the understanding of the relation between the mechanical and
electrical aspects of computer engineering.

Disadvantage

 It has literally no use when compared to the latter generations of computers

 It has little processing power
 It is outdated and obsolete.
 It has little to no space capacity
 It has a longer processing time compared with the other generations
  It’s a bias to short time planning

Comparison with the first generation computers

The first generation computer computers are the computers of the years 1946-56 that used
vacuum tubes.
Eg. UNIVAC, EDSAC, etc.

 Limitation of zero generation computers as compared with the first generation

computers

Speed – The 1st generation computers were actually relatively faster.

The computation of time was in milliseconds for 1st generation computers but for
most zero generation computers particularly, the earliest ones(mechanical)
computation in milliseconds were never possible. It really gives more sense to say
computation in minutes rather than seconds.

Versatility - The zero generation computer were relatively less versatile than 1st generation
computers. While the first generation computers can compute arithmetic operations
and other operations,
Most of the zero generation’s computers were restricted to the mathematical
operations addition and subtraction only or, division and multiplication only, or at
most such mathematical operations as addition, subtraction, division and
multiplication.
Finding square root in latest computers.
Eg. Analytical engine
Storage - The lattes zero generation computers could store data but had less capacity.

Reliability - The first generation computer were generally more reliable computers. Most of
the zero generation computers were mechanical except the latest one such as
Hollerith’s tabulator and analytical engine which were electronic. So then
interaction with them would be a bit more tedious, tiresome and boring rather than
interacting with the electronic first generation computers.
Efficiency - Obviously 1st generation computers are more efficient in computing than the
zero generation. The above point raised as advantage of the 1st generation computer
is generally in a relative sense.
 i.e. as compared with the zero generation computers. But as general case, we say they
lack these because they have now been modifies to a completely different reliable, efficient,
diligent, versatile, faster, accurate computers.

 Limitations of the first generation computer as compared with the zero

generation ones.

Size - The 1st generation computer were larger than most of the zero generation computers.
These required a lot of space for installation, which is in a relative sense, and
ofcource not the problem with zero generation computers.

Unportability - Due to their huge size, the 1st generation computers were not portable,
unlike most of the zero generation computers were.

Cost – The 1st generation computers cost more than the zero generation computers.

Need of electricity - We don’t need electricity in case of the MECHANICAL zero

generation computers but in the 1st one we don’t just need electricity, but a large
amount of electricity.

Hardware failures - The reliability we mentioned above is in terms of computation.

But in this case, the first generation computers are rather prone to frequent hardware
failure, so constant maintenance is required.
The zero generation computers, however, are also prone to frequent hardware failure;
they can be repaired or maintained easily.

Difficulty in programming and using - Since machine language is used in 1st generation
computers, they are a bit more difficult to program and use than with working with
the zero generation computers.

Reference
 Wikipedia;(zero generation )
 Hubpage;(birth of computers)
 Just science stuff;(generation zero)
 Computer studies IX
 Word press.com
 IT Stuff by justpcstuff