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Elrolution and Historv of computers

1.

chapter

lntroduction:

ln the modern life, no one can think without computer. Computer has become very essentialthing in

our life. Todiy computer is used not only for calculating but for many other activities. For example computerized telephone, switching centre's control traffic of millions of calls and keep line of communication untangled, super market scanner that calculates the bill and keep the inventory qorrect, Automatic teller machines ( ATM) that controls the bank transaction anywhere in the world.
From where this technology has come from? So it is important to understand their growth. The development of computer from early device to latest computer is classified in to the below category

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Mechanical calculating device Electromechanicalcalculating

Electronic computer

2. Mechanical calculatins devices:

They are classified as below

. .

Manualcalculatingdevice Semi automatic calculating device

3. Mechanical calculating devices

l. Manual calculating device

a. Abacus: This is the first manualcalculating device developed around 3500 BC. lt is rectangular frames

with number of rods. There are 17 rods in abacus. The horizontal line is called bar. Above the bar there is one bead and below the bar there are 4 beads.
On the bar there are 5 points. From middle to left side called positive side and middle to right side is

called negative side. When the beads touch the baronly, it has value. The middle point is called unit

pointorone'srods. lnone'srod,fromdownif onebeadtouchesthebar,thentheanswerisone. touches the bar, then the value is two. The upper bead has the value 5.
Next to one's rod is ten's rod in the left side. Then 100's rod, 1"000's rod.

lf two

We can calculate addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and square root easily using abacus
b. The Napier bones:

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lt is used in 17th century We can calculate multiplication, division even square rooJ and power. lt has rectangular strip of wood or bones with figures marked on one side.

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a a a

Each rod was divided in ten squares.

The top square was a digit from O to 9 The square below has multiple of digits

Thesedevicescoulddomostofthecalculationsbyitself
(automatic)

r ' r o o ' ' r ' r r

Pa sca

First semiautomatic mechanical device developed by Braise pascal and known as pascal,s line

Blaise Pascal is the son of a French tax collector invented this to help his father. He invented this called as numeric wheel calculator. He used g movable dials to calculate g digit numbers. The wheel is numbered from o to 9 and they are arranged in rows as 1,s L0,s L00,s , ect. , rf one's wheer compretes one revorution, 10,s wheer The disadvantage in this machine is there is rimitation to addition

wiil move one unit.

b.Leibnitz Machine;
This was invented in 1673 by a German mathematician and philosopherGottfried wilhem von
Leibn itz

This was developed for addition multiplication, , division and subtr-action Multiplication and division was done by shift mechanism brought about by series of slides. ln the base -ten system, when a digit is multiplied with r.0, shifts:one place to left and dividing digit with 10 , shifts one place to right. j '
.

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This is used for controiling the weaving to make the comprex pattern easy He used punched card to control the movement of threads by prese4ce or absence of hole in the cards

Punched card stored the instruction on the punched card. The presence and absence of holes are like
binary system

d.Difference eneine: ( 1g22)

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charles Babbage proposed a machine to compile mathematicaltable called difference engine. lt was powered by steam and was long as locomotive rt courd have stored program and carcurate and print resurt
The machine was never compreted due to mechanicar difricurties

automaticaily

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e. Analvtical eheine (1832)

a a

After working on difference engine for 10 years, the Babbage inspired to begin work on first general purpose computer which is called analytical engine. It is a steam powered engine.
It consists of 5O,O0O components rt's basic design is input, process, store and finaty wit get the output. we can store memory numbers up to 50 decimar digits rong. lt contained a millwith 'o0o control unit that allowed processing instruction in any sequence and output device to produce printed output.
He barrowed idea of punched card to encode the machine instruction from theJacquard loom lt does not perform one mathematicaltask. But difterent kinds of calculation

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f.Punched card: 1gg9

An American inventor Herman Hollerith used Jaquard room concept for calculating. His task was to find a faster way to compute

the

ln 1990, it took 7 years to complete the US census. Due to increase in population, the Bureau feared that it would take more than 10 years to count the latest population Herman used punched card to calculate the US census an& completed within years. 3 on a card represented one number and combination ottwo prn.r,u, represent

US census

i"T:r:'nch

on

80 characters can be stores in a single card. : He brought this punched in to the business world and found Tabulaiing machine company in 1896 and rater it became rnternationar Business machine ( rBM)in;;;i,.0'"'"'

5. Electromechanical catculatine a. Markt: (t937 _ L9441

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Howard H'Aiken a Harvard engineer working with IBM , developed an all electronic calculator by 1944
The purpose of the computer is to create batistic chart for US navy lt was about half as long s footballfield and contains about 500 miles of wires. lt was commonly referred was, an electronic relay computer. rt used electromagnetic signar to move the mechanicar parts. lt was slow ( it took 3 to 5 seconds for one calculation) rt is infrexibre but it perform basic arithmetic and more complex equation

5. Technological Advancement

ln 1898 Valdemer Paulson developed recording devices consisting of tapes ' and drums that stored electrical info rmation

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Lee de forest, in 1906, invented thermionicvalves called asvacuum

tubes. lt switch electrical

a

signal electronically Alan Turning a British mathematician established theoretically that a complex problem having

logical solution can be split in to a set of simple steps and can be solved easily. All modern computers works on this principle.
Claude Shannon, en electrical engineer showed an electronic switching circuit could be used to

perform logical and arithmetic operation. He used Boolean algebra for the first time.
7. Electronic computer: classified in to various generation on the basis of technical development
a.ABC { 1937

1938) : Atonsoft Berrv computer.

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This is the first electronic computer used vacuum tubes in the place of electromechanical relays

lt was special purpose computer. During Second World War, they planned todevelopthe computerto help in designing and coding/ decoding of rnessages.
By 1941, German Engineer Konared zuse had developed a computer called Z3 TO DESIGN Aero

plane and Missiles.

ln 1943 , the British completed a secret code breaking computer called colossus

First Generation Computers: (1946

ENIAC (1939

- 195.8)

- 1946) : Electronic

Numerical lntegrator and computer

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lt was developed by John Presper Eckert and John W.Mauchly

This consists of 18,000 vacuum tubes, 7O,AOO resistors, and 5 million solder joihts This computer consurned 160 kilo watt of electrical power. This is 1000 times faster than MARK
I

.Thiswasconsideredasthefirstelectronicgeneralpurposecomputer

This can add two large number in 200 Micro seconds where as MARK lcan calculate in 5 seconds

John Von Neumann a mathematician at Princeton University suggested a distinct improvement in 1945

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Use

of binary number system to store data and instruction in the computer memory to process both data and instructions so that execution will be automatic

seq uentia lly

Use a program

EDSAC (1947

1.949) : Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer

lt was designed by professor M.Wilkes of Cambridge University and was completed in 1949 ln this, the program was fed into the storage unit by means of paper tape

lt uses vacuum tubes and was slightly faster than ENIAC. lt was not binary but was the first stored - program electric computer.

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EDVAC ( 1949): Electronic

discrete Variable Automatic computer

. .

Von Neumann designed in 1949 with a memory to hold both a stored program as well as data. The key element in this computer was control processing unit which allows all the computer

functions to be coordinated through single source.

UNIVAC I ( 1951)

Universal Automatic Computer

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ltwas built by Rernington Rand, became one of the commercially available computers.
US census Bureau and

the General Electric Owned UNIVAC's

Characteristics of First Generation computers:

Used Vacuum tube and a magnetic drum for storage

Operating lnstructions were made for a specific task for which the computer was used. Each machine has separate binary code program called machine language

Other first eeneration computers:

MARK

ll,

MARK

ilt,

UNTVAC

il,

BURROUGHS

Second Generation Computers ( 1956

19631

This computer used transistor and Magnetic core memory. So this computer was smafler, faster, more

reliable and more energy efficient

Featu res:

1. 2. 3.

They used machine language with assembly language allowed abbreviated programming codes to replace long, difficult binary codes. They also contained all the components like printers, tape storage, memory, operating systems, and stored programs The high Sophisticated language COBOL and FORTAN came into common use during this period

Exarnples of Second generation computers: UNIVAC III, 4OO AND

8OO SERIES, B 5OOO, CDC

1604

Third Generation Computers (1964

- 1971)
as

Jack Kilby an engineer with Texas lnstruments developed lC

integrated circuit in 1-958 which consists of three electronic components. Laterthey fixed more components in the chip and called semiconductor.

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Characteristic of third Generation:

1-' lntegrated circuit

2' 3. 4'

used and as result the computer became small Operating system was used to run the machine with different proBrams at one time with central program that monitored and coordinated the computer's memory

lmprovement in magnetic core and magnetic disks and main memory enlarged Output and input device come to the market. optical scanner, magnetic ink character tape video display , and graph plotter came to the market

Eg: system 360, system 370, UNTVAC 1100, pDp-11

Fourth Generation Computer:

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lntegrated circuit (lC)are mostly used in this and the size of the computerwas reduced LSI - Large Scale lntegration could fit hundreds of components onto one chip. ln 1980 a very large scale integration (VLSI)squeezed hundreds of thousands of components in one chip
Ultra large scale integration (ULSI) squeezed millions of components into one chip This helps to reduce the size as well the cost of the computer

lntel 4004 chip was developed and all the components of a computer (CpU, Memory & lnput/output control) were assembled on one chip and it is called as Microprocessor. Due to this greater computing power, large memory was developed. personal and home computers
are the

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examples

;l

Thiscomputer is more powerful and useci to link into the network and share memory, software, information and communicate with each otherthrough localarea network (LAN) or telephone line. lnternet can connect all the computer through worldwide into a single network of information

ThecomputernetworkisusedtosendEmails and send messages throughout the world

bytypingtheEmail address intheinternet

Fifth Generation computer:

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Fourth generation computers mainly focused on changing the values to transistor and then it to lC which made the computer smaller and high speed. But this cannot think Fifth generation computers are expected to fulfillthis requirement and it is called as super
com puter.

This will have high storage capacity & high speed and can do decision making like human being This new development of implementing the human thought process is called "artificial

lntellige nce" There will be new style of programming and hardware for it.

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