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JAREN G.

QUEGAN BSCS - 1A

HISTORY OF COMPUTER

NAME OF INVENTION INVENTOR DATE OF USE/FUNCTION


INVENTION
The Abacus (original Acient Chinese 1200 C.E. It is used to illustrate to illustrate the
mechanical counting priciples of counting. This device allows
device) user to make computations using a
system of sliding beads.
The Gunter scale Edmund Gunter 1620 It is a device for performing navigational
(from Napier’s calculations.
logarithms to the slide
rule)
Calculating Clock Wilhelm Schickard 1624 The device could add and subtract six-
digit numbers (with a bell for seven-digit
overflows) through six interlocking gears,
each of which turned one-tenth of a
rotation for each full rotation of the gear
to its right. Thus, 10 rotations of any gear
would produce a “carry” of one digit on
the following gear and change the
corresponding display.
Slide Rule William Oughtred 1632 It is use to perform direct multiplication
(from Napier’s and division.
logarithms to the slide
rule)
The Pascaline Blaise Pascal 1642 It was used only for addition and
subtraction of numbers by manipulating
digits.

Leibniz Calculator: Step Gottfried Wilhelm 1694 It is the type of machine which is used for
Reckoner von Leibniz however, it calculating the engine of a class of
was first mechanical calculators.
build in
1673
The Jacquard loom Joseph-Marie 1804–05 At the top of the machine is a stack of
Jacquard punched cards that would be fed into the
loom to control the weaving pattern.
The Babbage difference Charles Babbage 1821 It is designed to calculate and tabulate
engines polynomial functions. The design
describes a machine to calculate a series
of values and print results automatically
in a table.
The Babbage Analytical Charles Babbage 1833 Analytical Engine is used to calculate the
Engine numerical value of trigonometric
functions of any formula. It can add,
subtract, multiply, and divide in
automatic sequence at a rate of 60
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additions per minute.


Lovelace's program: The Augusta Ada King 1843 It is An algorithm to calculate a sequence
first computer program of Bernoulli numbers, intended to be
carried out by Charles Babbage's
Analytical Engine.
Punched-card Herman Hollerith 1884 The tabulating machine was an
Tabulating machine electromechanical machine designed to
assist in summarizing information stored
on punched cards.
The ABC John Atanasoft and 1942 The ABC was designed for a specific
Clifford Berry purpose, the solution of systems of
simultaneous linear equations. It could
handle systems with up to twenty-nine
equations, a difficult problem for the
time.
The Mark 1 Howard Hathaway 1944 The Automatic Sequence Controlled
Aiken/IBM Calculator (Harvard Mark I) was the first
operating machine that could execute
long computations automatically

1st Generation of Computer (1946 – 1959)

Computers developed between 1946 – 1959, are the first generation of computers. They were
large and limited to basic calculations. They consisted of large devices like the vacuum tubes. The input
method of these computers was a machine language known as the 1GL or the first generation language.
The physical methods of using punch cards, paper tape, and magnetic tape were used to enter data into
these computers.

Examples of the first generation computers include:


The ENIAC Dr. John W. 1946 The ENIAC was the very first general-
(Electronic Numerical Mauchly and J. purpose electronic computer. It was
Integrator And Presper Eckert designed primarily to calculate artillery
Computer) firing tables to be used by the United
States Army's Ballistic Research
Laboratory to help US troops during
World War II.
EDVAC (Electronic Dr. John W. 1949 The EDVAC was a binary serial computer
Discrete Variable Mauchly and J. with automatic addition, subtraction,
Automatic Computer) Presper Eckert multiplication, programmed division and
automatic checking with an ultrasonic
serial memory capacity of 1,000 44-bit
words (later 1,024 words, thus giving a
memory, in modern terms, of 5.5
kilobytes).
UNIVAC I (Universal Dr. John W. 1951 The UNIVAC I was designed as a
Automatic Computer) Mauchly and J. commercial data-processing computer,
Presper Eckert intended to replace the punched-card
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accounting machines of the day. It could


read 7,200 decimal digits per second (it
did not use binary numbers), making it by
far the fastest business machine yet built.
IBM 701 IBM/Thomas 1952 IBM's first computer. Introduced in 1952,
Johnson Watson the 701 was designed for scientific work
Junior and research, which led to the
development of the FORTRAN
programming language. Nineteen
machines were built, a record volume for
such a computer in that era.
IBM 650 IBM/Frank E. 1953 The 650 was marketed to business,
Hamilton scientific and engineering users as a
general purpose version of the IBM 701
and IBM 702 computers which were for
scientific and business purposes
respectively.

2ND Generation of Computer (1959-1965)

These computers were more reliable and in place of vacuum tubes, used transistors. This made
them far more compact than the first generation computers. The input for these computers were higher
level languages like COBOL, FORTRAN etc. In these computers, primary memory was stored on the
magnetic cores and magnetic tape and they used magnetic disks as secondary storage devices.

Examples of the second generation computers include:


IBM 1620 IBM 1959 The IBM 1620 was a general-purpose,
stored-program data processing system
for small businesses, research and
engineering departments of large
companies, and schools requiring
solutions to complex problems in the
areas of engineering, research, and
management science.
Some other examples: IBM 7094, CDC 1604, CDC 3600, UNIVAC 1108.

Third Generation Of Computers (1965 – 1971)

These computers differed from the first and the second generations simply by the fact that a
new circuit element like IC’s (Integrated Circuits) was used. An integrated circuit is a small device that
can contain thousands and thousands of devices like transistors, resistances and other circuit elements
that make up a computer. Jack Kilby is credited with the invention of the Integrated Circuit or the IC
chips. With the invention of IC’s, it became possible to fit thousands of circuit elements into a small
region and hence the size of the computers eventually became smaller and smaller.

Another salient feature of these computers was that they were much more reliable and
consumed far less power. The input languages for such computers were COBOL, FORTRAN-II up to
JAREN G. QUEGAN BSCS - 1A

FORTRAN-IV, PASCAL, ALGOL-68, BASIC, etc. These languages were much better and could represent
more information. Consequently more and more complex calculations are possible.

Examples of the third generation computers include:


IBM-360 series IBM 1964 It was the first family of computers
designed to cover the complete range of
applications, from small to large, both
commercial and scientific.
Honeywell-6000 series Honeywell 1970 A machine with addressing modifications
International, Inc to support the Multics operating system
Some other examples: PDP (Personal Data Processor), and IBM-370/168.

Fourth Generation Of Computers (1971 – 1980)

These computers used the VLSI technology or the Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits
technology. Therefore they were also known as the microprocessors. Intel was the first company to
develop a microprocessor. The first “personal computer” or PC developed by IBM, belonged to this
generation. VLSI circuits had almost about 5000 transistors on a very small chip and were capable of
performing many high-level tasks and computations. These computers were thus very compact and
thereby required a small amount of electricity to run.

Example:
CRAY-X-MP (Super Cray Research 1982 It was used for large-scale scientific
Computer) applications, such as simulating complex
physical phenomena, and was sold to
government and university laboratories.
Some other examples: DEC 10, PDP 11, CRAY-1. This generation of computers had the first
“supercomputers” that could perform many calculations accurately. They were also used in networking
and also used higher and more complicated languages as their inputs. The computer languages like
languages like C, C+, C++, DBASE etc. were the input for these computers.

Fifth Generation Of Computers (1981 – Present)

This is the present generation of computers and is the most advanced one. The methods of
input include the modern high-level languages like Python, R, C#, Java etc. These are extremely reliable
and employ the ULSI or the Ultra Large Scale Integration technology. These computers are at the
frontiers of the modern scientific calculations and are used to develop the Artificial Intelligence or AI
components that will have the ability to think for themselves.

Examples include:
Intel Pentium 4 Intel 2000 Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs
for desktops, laptops and entry-level
servers.
Some other examples: IBM PC, Apple II, Intel core i3, i5, i7, Ryzen, AMD Athlon, etc.

JAREN G. QUEGAN

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