CHAPTER1 : Part 2

INTRODUCTION & HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

UNIVERSITI TENAGA NASIONAL

“Generates Professionals”
 Module Objectives
• At the end of the module, students should be able to:
– appreciate and understand the history of computers.
– describe the generations of computer design leading up to
the present
– describe the story of personal computer development
– characterize the relative size, scope, uses and variety of
available computer systems.
 Computer History - The Early Days
• 1822 - Charles Babbage proposed a machine to calculate
tables for logarithms and trigonometric functions, called the
Difference Engine.
• Before completing the machine, he invented in 1833 the
more sophisticated Analytic Engine that uses punch cards to
control the arithmetic calculations
• The machine is programmable, has storage capabilities, and
control flow mechanisms – it is a general purpose computer.
• The Analytic Engine was never completed.
• Augusta Ada Lovelace writes the first program for the
Analytical Engine (to calculate Bernoulli numbers).
– Some consider her as the first programmer.
Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine
 Computer History - The Early Days

• The calculation devices weren’t a commercial success –

pencil and paper was cheap and fast enough.
• The 1890 US census demanded larger data processing
power, because more questions were asked.
• Hermann Hollerith provided the data processing
equipment.
• Hollerith’s company later became a core part of IBM.

Census - An official, usually periodic enumeration of a population, often including the collection of related demographic information.
Hollerith’s Machine

Hollerith Machine
Hollerith Electric Tabulator, US Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 1908,
Photograph by Waldon Fawcett. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-
45687.
 Analog Computing ???
• The digital computing methods of Babbage and Hollerith
did not lead directly to the modern computer.
• In fact, analogue computing devices were much more
common in 1900-1930, especially for scientific
computations.
• In 1930, Vannevar Bush (MIT) constructed a large
differential analyzer that was capable of integration and
differentiation.
• The common conception was that analogue computing has
many advantages over digital computation (and one finds
constructions of analogue computers until the 1960’s).
 The Start of the Modern Era
• Atanasoff Berry
Computer (ABC)
• an experimental machine
for solving systems of
simultaneous linear
equations
• 1938-42 
Iowa State University by
Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff
and Clifford E. Berry.
• Use electronics for
arithmetical calculation
• described as the first
"electronic digital
computer".
• However, it was not a stored program machine, which distinguishes it
from later, more general machines,
ABC Machine in action
 The Start of the Modern Era
• 1944 - Howard Aiken funded by IBM built Mark I  8 feet
high and 55 feet long, made of streamlined steel and glass
• the first large scale automatic digital computer in the USA
 The Start of the Modern Era

• 1946 – Dr. John Mauchly • 1950 – John Von Neumann

• ENIAC - Electronic Numerical • EDVAC - Electronic Discrete Variable
Integrator And Computer Computer
ENIAC
 The Beginning of the Computer Age
• The computer age is remarkable where
so much has happened in short period of
time.
• Four generations of technology
happened in about 55 years.
• The timing of each generation is
according to the beginning of commercial
delivery of the hardware technology
• The beginning of the commercial
computer age can be dated to June 14,
1951.

• This was the day the first UNIVAC--Universal Automatic Computer was
delivered to a client, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, for use in tabulating
the previous year's census.
 The Beginning of the Computer Age

• In about 55 years, we have leapfrogged through

four generations of technology
– The vacuum tube
– The transistor
– The integrated circuit
– The microprocessor
 Computer Generations - The 1st Gen
The First Generation, 1951–1958
The Vacuum Tube
 electronic tubes the size of light bulbs used as the internal computer
components
 generated a great deal of heat  problems in temperature regulation
and climate control
 subject to frequent burnout
 people operating the computer did not know whether the problem
was in the programming or in the machine.
 language used in programming was machine language, which uses
numbers making programming the computer difficult and time-
consuming.
Computer Generations - The 1st Gen
The First Generation, 1951–1958: The Vacuum Tube
 Computer Generations - The 2nd Gen
The Second Generation, 1959–1964
The Transistor

 Bell Lab scientists  J. Bardeen, H. W. Brattain, and W. Shockley

developed the transistor
 Transistors  much smaller than vacuum tubes, needed no warm-up
time, consumed less energy, and were faster and more reliable.
Computer Generations - The 2nd Gen

A replica of the first

transistor invented
at Bell Labs,
December 23, 1947
 Computer Generations - The 2nd Gen
• During this generation another important development was the move
from machine language to assembly languages, also called
symbolic languages
• After the development of symbolic languages came high-level
languages, such as FORTRAN (1954) and COBOL (1959).
• 1962  the first removable disk pack was marketed. Disk storage
supplemented magnetic tape systems and enabled users to have fast
access to desired data.
• Throughout this period computers were being used principally by
business, university, and government organizations. They had not
filtered down to the general public.
Computer Generations - The 3rd Gen
The Third Generation, 1965–1970
The Integrated Circuit (IC)

 An integrated circuit (IC) is a complete electronic circuit on a small

chip of silicon which is a semiconductor.
 In 1965 integrated circuits began to replace transistors in computers.
 The chips were hailed as a generational breakthrough because they
had desirable characteristics:
 reliability,
 compactness
 low cost.
 The beginning of the third generation was trumpeted by the IBM 360
series.
Computer Generations - The 3rd Gen

An integrated circuit (IC) Intel 4004 IC

 Computer Generations - The 4th Gen
The Fourth Generation, 1971 - Present:
The Microprocessor

• Perhaps the most far-reaching contribution of the 360 series was IBM's
decision to unbundled the software, that is, to sell the software separately
from the hardware.
• This approach led to the creation of today's software industry. Software
became more sophisticated during this third generation.
• Through the 1970s computers gained dramatically in speed, reliability,
and storage capacity,
• The fourth generation was, in fact, an extension of third-generation
technology.
• A microprocessor contains millions of tiny transistors
 Computer Generations - The 4th Gen
• The general-purpose processor-on-a-chip, also known as the
microprocessor, became commercially available in 1971.
• Computer power become more apparent with the use of the
microprocessor.
• Common applications of the microprocessor 
– digital watches
– pocket calculators
– personal computers
– virtually every machine in the home or business  cars, copy machines,
television sets, bread-making machines, etc
• Computers today are 100 times smaller than those of the first
generation, and a single chip is far more powerful than ENIAC.
Do You Know ???

The first
microprocessor, the
Intel 4004 with
2300 transistors
and 3mmx4mm size,
was introduced in
1971.
Do You Know ???

• The Pentium 4 was

introduced in 2000.
• It had 42 million
transistors and a
1,400-1,500MHz
clock speed.
• The die size was
224mm2
 Computer Generations - The 5th Gen
The Fifth Generation: Onwards

• Term coined by the Japanese to describe the powerful, "intelligent"

computers they wanted to build by the mid-1990s.
• The term evolved to encompass elements in several research fields
related to computer intelligence: artificial intelligence, expert systems,
and natural language.
• The true focus  is connectivity where the massive industry effort to
permit users to connect their computers to other computers.
• The concept of the information superhighway has captured the
imaginations of both computer professionals and everyday computer
users.
Technology Generations
 Activity
• Can Computers Think ?
• What do you think
computers of the next 50
years will be like ?
• Discuss in your group in
terms of the
functions/features of
future computers
 Categories of Computers
• Personal Computers
• Mobile Computers and Mobile Devices
• Game Consoles
• Servers
• Mainframes
• Supercomputers
• Embedded Computers
 Personal Computers
• A computer that can perform all of its input,
processing, output and storage activities by itself.
• It contains:
- A processor
- Memory
- Input devices
- Output devices
- Storage devices
• 2 types of personal computers are desktop
computers and notebook computers
 Personal Computers
• Desktop computers
– Also known as PCs, microcomputers,
or home computers
• Broken down into three
categories:
– Low-end computers
– Fully-powered personal computers
– Workstations
• Network computer
– Central processing unit and minimal
memory
– Designed to be used on a network
• Sometimes called thin client
 PC Categories
• Low-end computers
– Fine for home users,
word processing, simple
games, Internet access
• Fully powered / high-
end computers
– Good for heavy use of
graphics, programming,
or action-oriented games
• Workstations
– Very high-end computers
used by engineers,
financial traders, and
graphic designers
 Mobile Computers & Mobile Devices

• Mobile computer – personal computer you can

carry from place to place. Eg: notebook, netbook,
tablet PCs
• Mobile device – computing device small enough
to hold in your hand. Eg: PDA, e-book readers,
handheld computer, portable media players
- Can connect a mobile device to a personal computer to
exchange information
- Internet-enabled
 Mobile Computer:
Notebook Computers
• Also called a laptop computer
• A portable, designed to fit on your lap
• Small, lightweight computers
• Capabilities approach that of desktop
computers
– Similar processing and memory
– Most have hard disk, and diskette or CD-ROM drive
 Mobile Computer:
Notebook Computers
• Netbook – type of notebook which is smaller, lighter, and
often not as powerful as a traditional notebook computer
• Tablet PCs – type of notebook computer that you can
interact with by touching the screen with finger or digital
pen
- Useful especially for taking notes in lectures, at meetings, conferences,
forums
 Mobile devices
Smart phones
•Internet-enabled phone that usually provides personal information
management functions such as calendar, appointment book, address book
calculator, notepad
•Offer variety of application software:
-Word processing
-Spreadsheet
-Games
-Capable of conducting live video conference
 Mobile devices

PDA
•Often looks like smart phone
•Also provides personal information management functions
such as calendar, appointment book, address book calculator,
notepad
•Differ from smart phone in a way:
-Does not provide phone capabilities
-Does not support voice input, built-in camera,
portable media player
 Mobile devices
Handheld computer
•Small enough to fit in one
hand
•Communicate wirelessly
with other devices
•Include digital pen of stylus
for input

Portable Media Player

•Mobile device which you can
store, organize and play
digital media
 Game Consoles
• Mobile computing device designed for single-player or
multiple player video games
• Standard game consoles use:
o Input – handheld controller
o Output – television screen
o Storage – hard disk, optical discs, memory card
• Eg: Steam Deck, Nintendo’s Switch, Sony’s Playstation 5
 Servers
• Control access to the hardware, software and other resources
on network
• Provides a centralized storage area for programs, data and
information
• It can support from two to several thousand connected
computer at the same time
 Mainframes
• Large, expensive, powerful computer that can handle
hundreds or thousands of connected user simultaneously.
• Store tremendous amounts of data, instructions and
information.
• Most major corporations use mainframes for business
activities:
o To bill millions of customers
o Prepare payroll for employees
o Manage thousands od items in
inventory
• Can act as servers in
network environment
 Supercomputers
• The fastest, most powerful and
most expensive computers
– Capable of processing more than
one quadrillion of instructions per
second
• Used for very sophisticated
applications requiring
mammoth data manipulation:
– Weather forecasting
– Weapons research
– Nuclear energy research
– Application in medicine
– Automotive design
 Embedded Computer
• Special purpose computer that functions as a component in
larger product.
• E.g. Built-in GPS in car, smart rice-cooker, washing
machine.
• Other example?