As for the HISTORY OF COMPUTERS, some of the pictures and personalities are already in my

presentation.

Here are the additional:

■ The First Calculator: The Abacus ■

- man's first recorded adding machine.

- chinese invention

- pebbles or beads were arranged to represent amounts and to facilitate calculation like addition and
subtraction.

■ The Mechanical Age ■

Mechanical computing device have small machines in them and are basically easier to handle than the
manual computing devices.

• NAPIER'S RODS or NAPIER'S BONES •

- a handheld device for multiplication and divisions invented by JOHN NAPIER, a

Scottish Mathematician.

• SLIDE RULE •

- invented by WILLIAM OUGHTRED.

- designed to do simple calculations such as approximate multiplication, division,

extraction of roots and raising to powers.

• PASCALINE or PASCAL CALCULATOR •

- BLAISE PASCAL invented this adding machine.

- this device adopted partly the principles of abacus, however, instead of using beads,

wheels were used to move its counters.

 - used for addition and subtraction

• LEIBNIZ'S MACHINE •

- GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ made some improvements on Pascal machine and built a device

that could add, subtract, multiple and divide numbers.

• JACQUARD'S LOOM •

- invented by JOSEPH-MARIE JACQUARD

- with the use of cards punched with holes, it was possible for this device to weave

fabrics in a variety of patterns.

• DIFFERENCE ENGINE and ANALYTICAL ENGINE •

- invented by CHARLES BABBAGE

- Difference Engine - massive steam-powered mechanical calculator designed to print

astronomical tables

- Analytical Engine - is a mechanical computer that can solve any mathematical

problem

- Babbage's Difference Engine and Analytical Engine are regarded as the first "Thinking

machines". These machines were made for people who weren't math experts. Babbage's

invention earned him the title, "Father of Computer".

■ Electromechanical Age ■

The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period.
Electromechanical computing devices used a combination of electrical circuits and machines like
gadgets.
 • HOLLERITH'S TABULATING MACHINE •

- HERMAN HOLLERITH worked as a statistician in the census Bureau, deviced the

tabulating machine used in the counting process of the country's population. Hollerith's

tabulator made the computational times three to four times shorter than the time

previously needed to hand counts. It functioned through the use of electrical power.

• MARK 1 •

- Invented by HOWARD AIKEN. The first automatic calculator. This device was eight

feet and fifty feet long.

- could add, subtract, multiply and divide.

- was actually not a very efficient and reliable machine but it generated a lot of public

attention.

■ The Electronic Age ■

The electronic computing devices use electronic circuits and are fare more efficient compared to the
previous devices.

• ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer) •

- was built by JOHN MAUCHLY and J. PRESPER ECKERT.

- was considered the first true computer and the first fully electronic general purpose

digital computer.

- has the ability to perform a single arithmetic operation in less than a second.

- utilized 18,000 vacuum tubes that operated simultaneously.

- was able to fill a huge room because of its size

- one of its principal drawbacks, it can process only one program at a time.
 • EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) •

- was the idea of DR. JOHN VON NEUMANN, special consultant of the ENIAC development team.

- capable of storing programs inside the computer.

- first stored-program computer

• EDSAC (Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer) •

- another electronic digital computer to have stored-program concept.

• UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) •

- the first commercially available first-generation computer.

- was delivered to the U.S Census Bureau in March 1951. It was also the first computer specifically built
for data processing application.

Note: The EDVAC was not the first stored program machine to go operation, the honor went to EDSAC.

■ THE GENERATION OF COMPUTERS ■

The Generation of Computer speaks of the components, parts of a computer and the technology for
building a computer from the component parts.

1.) First Generation Computers - were built using vacuum tubes. These computers utilized around
18,000 vacuum tubes (electronic tubes as big as a light bulb). These tubes were capable of performing
10,000 additions in one second. First generation computers were generally huge in size, very expensive
and not very reliable. The only programming language these computers could use, was the machine
language and thus were very difficult to use. The ENIAC belongs to this generation.

2.) Second Generation Computers - were built using transistors and resistors. Using transistors,
computers became available in smaller sizes, and computer processing became much faster and more
reliable.

- could perform from 200,000 to 250,000 calculations per second. The UNIVAC was a second generation
computer.
3.) Third Generation Computers - were already made out of integrated circuits (IC). An IC is a logic
circuit on a tiny chip of silicon. The chip is made up of a semiconductor material with the following
characteristic:

• It is highly reliable. It rarely fails even if used over and over.

• It is compact.

• It is inexpensive.

• It reduces the power requirement in using computers.

4.) Fourth Generation Computers - utilize the microprocessors, which is a single specialized chip that
contains the processor. The microprocessor is the one used in microcomputers. It was developed by
speed and reliability.

- made use of secondary storage media like disk drives to store data.

5.) Fifth Generation Computers - started in 1980 and their features are continuously enhanced up to
this time.

- were characterized by even greater speed.