HISTORY

OF
COMPUTERS
1. MANUAL COMPUTATIONAL DEVICES
 a. Abacus – (Chinese) first mechanical
device to help man compute. Used by
Babylonians (500 BC) Soroban – Japanese
term for abacus
 b. Logarithm – John Napier (1614
Computational device that used bones (11
ivory rods) known as Napier’s bones.
 c. Slide rule– William Oughtred (1632)
Circular in shape. Victor Mayer Amedee
Mannheim (1859)- present model of slide
rule
 ABACUS

NAPIER’S BONE / LOGARITHM

2. MANUAL MECHANICAL CALCULATORS:
 a. Calculating machine operated by
series of wheels – Blaise Pascal (1642)
used for addition and subtraction
 b. Step wheel machine– Gottfried
Wilhelm Von Leibniz (1674). Can perform
addition, subtraction, multiplication and
extracting square root
 c. Punched-card– “Jacquards Weaving
Loom” (1801) IBM 010 punch - one of the
first devices designed to perforate cards. A
hole or the lack of a hole in a card
represented information that could be
read by early computers.
PASCALINE

PUNCH CARDS
 d. Difference Engine (1822)– developed
by Charles Babbage
 e. Analytical Engine (1833)– developed
by Charles Babbage (Father of computers)
which became the prototype of modern
computers.
 DIFFERENCE ENGINE

HOLLERITH DESK
3. ELECTRO MECHANICAL COMPUTER

a.Tabulating Machine
and CodingSystem –
Herman Hollerith (1884)
ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS:
 1.ABC – Atanasoff Berry Computer
(1939) Dr. Joh Vincent Atanasoff and
Clifford Berry. World’s First Automatic
Electronic Digital Computer Atanasoff
and Berry developed a computer with
separated data processing and memory.
It is not clear if a functional version
was built. They only receive credit for
their contributions when a lawsuit
regarding the patent on ENIAC was
settled in 1973.
 2. Mark 1 – Automatic Sequence
Controlled Calculator - Howard
Hathaway Aiken (1944). 50 feet by 8
feet.
 3. ENIAC – Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer John
Presper Eckert Jr. and John W.
Mauchly – (1943 – 1946) - First fully
operational electronic digital
computer (used 18,000 vacuum tubes
MARK 1
ENIAC
 4. EDVAC – Electronic Discreet Variable
Automatic Computer. Princeton University
(Dr. John Von Neumann – 1946) Binary
Arithmetic and Stored Program Concept
 5. EDSAC – Electronic Delay Storage
Automatic Computer- Cambridge University,
England. First Commercial Digital Computer
 6. UNIVAC Computer (1951) - made by the
Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. The
first computer capable of handling both
numeric and textual information. Used by the
United States Census Bureau. Eckert-Mauchly
was acquired by companies that eventually
became part of Unisys Corporation.

 7.Microprocessor
(1971) - is a
computer that is
fabricated on an
integrated circuit
(IC). Computers
had been around
for 20 years before
the first
microprocessor was
developed at Intel .
EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC
COMPUTERS:
1. First Generation Computers-
Wired circuits, vacuum tubes and
needs cool environment (1951-58)
2. Second Generation
Computers- Use transistors ( 1959
-64)
3. Third Generation Computers-
Use integrated circuits (IC) or
chips. “mini computers” (1964 – 70)
EVOLUTION OF ELECTRONIC
COMPUTERS:
4. Fourth Generation
Computers- Use microprocessor or
“computer-in-a-chip”.
“Microcomputers” (1971 –present)
Microprocessors, called silicon
chips, are embedded in a protective
casing. The wires radiating from
the silicon chip connect to short
metal legs that are soldered into
integrated circuit boards.
TYPES OF COMPUTERS:

1. According to Purpose
 a. General purpose –
programmed to perform many
functions.
 b. Special purpose –
performs only a specific set of
operation
2. According to Data Handled:
a. Analog computer
– used for scientific and
engineering applications for precise
measurements to the smallest unit

b. Digital Computer
– provide reading numbers more
accurately than analog computers
because they measure and represent
quantities in distinct variables.
3. According to Capacity (Volume of Task)
a. Super computer
– largest and fastest machines with a
capacity of 50 million operations / second
b. Large Scale Computer
– have 1.5 million bytes or more of main
memory and operating speed in the low nano
second range. (1 billionth of a second)
Used by large firms with thousands of employees
and customers.
c. Medium Sized Computers
– have 32 bit word length and 524,000 bytes
memory size
COMPONENTS OF THE CPU
1. Control Unit – supervises or monitors the
activities performed by the entire computer
system. It decodes and interprets the
instructions and releases out signals that act
as commands for circuits to execute the
instruction.
2. Arithmetic Logic Unit -Performs
arithmetical and logical operations. It is where
data is manipulated.
3. Primary Storage – “memory or main
storage”. Holds instructions and data before
processing starts.
a. RAM – Random Access Memory
b. ROM – Read Only Memory
STRUCTURES OF DATA:

1. BIT – Smallest unit through which

data are represented, which is 0 or
2. Byte – a group of bits, usually 8
bits long, smallest unit that a
computer can process and basic unit
held in storage
3. Field – a combination of bytes, a
single information about something
such as name, age, or gender
4. Record – collection of fields that
relate to a single entity like students
record on name, age, etc.

5. File – collection of related records

Ex. Record of all students in a class

6. Database or Databank –
collection of logically related files
composed of all data which a computer
has for a particular manipulation.