The History of Computers

The History of Computer

The electronic digital computer has had
and continues to have a profound not only on
business and science but on society in general.
History studies are extremely useful in
evaluating that impact and understanding the
process of change that leads to even more
advanced technologies.
 Thus, the study of history can help to
explain what can and cannot be reasonably
expected from technological developments.
How various computational devices
affected past societies will undoubtedly shed
some light on how computers are likely to
affect our society in the future.

“Those who do not learn from history are

destined to repeat it” – George Santayana
The Earliest Computing Device
The earliest data processing equipment were
all manual-mechanical due to the absence of
electricity and adequate industrial technology.
Among most popular were:
1. Abacus
2. Napier’s Bone
3. Oughtred’s Slide Rule
4. Pascal’s Calculator
5. Leibniz’s Calculator
6. Babbage’s Analytical Engine
7. Hollerith’s Punch-Card Machine
Abacus
- the first manual data processing device
was the abacus which was developed in China
in the twelfth century A.D.
- in this form the abacus is still widely
used, especially in the Middle East and Asia.
- there are two (2) main reason for its
popularity:
a. simple
b. effective
 - the device has a frame with beads strung
on wires or rods and arithmetic calculations
are performed by manipulating beads.
Napier’s Bones
- John Napier was a Spanish
mathematician who became famous for his
invention of logarithms
- the use of “logs” enabled him to reduce
any multiplication problem to a problem of
addition
 - his “bones” are set of eleven rods with
numbers marked on them in such a way that
by simply placing the rods side by side
products and quotients of large number can
be obtained
- the sticks were called “bones” because
they were made of bones or ivory
- Napier’s “bones” represented a
significant contribution to the development of
computing devices
Napier’s Bones
Oughtred’s Slide Rule
- although the slide rule appeared in various
forms in Europe during the 17th century, its
invention is attributed to the English
mathematician William Oughtred.
- basically, a slide rule consists of two
movable rulers that placed side by side
- each ruler is marked off in such a way that
the actual distances for the beginning of the ruler
are proportional to the logarithms of the
numbers printed on the ruler
- by sliding the rulers one can quickly multiply
and divide
Oughtred’s Slide Rule
Pascal’s Calculator
- Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician
and experimental physicist who was one of
the first modern scientists to develop and
build a calculator
- in 1645, he devised a calculating machine
that was capable of adding and subtracting
numbers
- the machine was operated by dialing a
series of wheels
 - approximately the size of a cigar box,
Pascal’s machine could add and subtract
numbers containing up to eight (8) digits
- it had a hand-cranked mechanical gear
system, in which a series of 10-toothed wheels
or dials represented decimal numbers
- the machine performed features
computations by counting integers
- one of the important features was an
automatic carry that is, when one wheel was
turned from 9 to 0, the next wheel to the left
moved one digit.
 - addition was performed by “stepping”
(hand turning) the appropriate wheels by the
amount to be added. Subtraction requires
turning the wheels in reverse.
Pascal’s Calculator
Pascaline Calculation
Leibniz’s Calculator
- like Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz was a
seventeenth-century scientist who recognized the
value of building machines that could do
mathematical calculations and save labor too.
- he was one of the greatest scientific
geniuses of his time
- invent calculus
- it utilized the same techniques for addition
and subtraction as Pascal’s device but also
multiplication and division as well as extract
square roots.
Leibniz’s Calculator
Babbage’s Engine
- Charles Babbage, a nineteenth-century
Englishman, is frequently considered the
Father of modern computer
- though he did not actually build an
operational computer himself, his ideas
became the basis for modern computational
devices
Babbage’s Difference Engine
- designed to automate a standard
procedure for calculating roots of
polynomials
- based on formulas, the difference
between certain values is constant
- this was used frequently for producing
astronomical tables which particularly used
for the British Navy’s navigational purposes
Babbage’s Difference Engine
Babbage’s Analytical Engine
- concept was similar in concept to
twentieth-century digital computers
- was designed to use two (2) types of
cards
1. operational cards – to indicate the
specific functions to be performed
2. variable cars – to specify the actual data
 - the idea of entering a program or set of
instructions on cards followed by data cards is
one method used by modern computers for
implementing the stored-program concept
- since limited to fund and technology it
would contained many features of present-
days computer, including punched-card input,
storage unit, arithmetic unit, printing unit and
control by a sequential program
- Lady Ada Byron worked with Babbage
and refer to her as the first programmer
Babbage’s Analytical Engine
Hollerith’s Punched-Card Machine
- Herman Hollerith (1880s), a statistician
with the US Bureau of the Census, completed
a set of machines to help process the results
of the 1890 census
- using 3 by 5 inch punched cards to record
the data he constructed an electromagnetic
counting machine to sort the data manually
and tabulate the data
 - The data to be processed were coded as
holes in cards. The cards were passed between
metal pins and trays containing mercury-filled
cups. Whenever a metal pin encountered a hole
in a card, it passed through the card and made
contact with the mercury. As the pin touched the
mercury, it closed an electric circuit and thus
activated a counting mechanism.
- (1890) he left the Census Bureau and build
and sell his own tabulating machine and his
company was the forerunner of IBM Corp.
his machine was the first commercially
successful data processing machine that could
sort 300 cards per minute
Hollerith’s Punched-Card Machine
Early Developments in Electronic Data
Processing (EDP)
Early Developments in Electronic Data Processing

- all the early machines, except for

Babbage’s Analytical engine were essentially
single purpose devices
- these machines were designed to
perform a specific task or set of tasks
- the major innovation of the first modern-
age machines was its capability to perform
automatically a long sequence of varied
arithmetical and logical operations
 - World War II greatly accelerated the
development of a working general-purpose
computer and many historians say that
wartime is particularly fertile period for
technological invention
- the case of the electronic digital
computer clearly supports that point of view
 - (1937) Howard Aiken set out to build an
automatic calculating machine that would
established technology with the punched
cards of Hollerith and the complete device
was known as the MARK 1 digital computer.
- the first electronic digital computer to be
put into full operation was built as a secret
wartime project between 1939 to 1946 at the
University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of
Electrical Engineering, this machine which
used vacuum tubes was called the “ENIAC”
computer
 - following the war, work began on the
“EDVAC”, a computer which worked on the
stored-program concept

Since the 1940s several generations of

computer have continuously evolved. From
first generation to fourth, the trend has been
to produce more powerful, less expensive,
smaller and more reliable computers.
MARK 1
- worked by Howard Aiken at Harvard
University with the assistance of graduate
students and engineers from IBM
- completed in 1944 and also known as the
Mark 1 digital computer, its official name was
Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator
- approximately 50 feet long and 8 feet
high and consisted of some 700, 000 moving
parts and several hundred miles of wiring
Functions:
1. perform arithmetic operations
2. could locate information stored in
tabular form
3. processed number up to 23 digits long
4. could multiply three to eight digit
number in 1 second
 - internal operations were controlled
automatically with electromagnetic relays and
the arithmetic counters were mechanical
- it was not an electronic computer but
was rather an electromechanical one since it
powered by electric motor and used switches
and relays
- first automatic general-purpose digital
computer
Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), 1940’s

• an early computer
• developed at
UPenn
• Size: 30’ x 50’ room
• 18,000 vacuum
tubes
• 1500 relays
• weighed 30 tons
• designers
– John Mauchly
– J. Presper Eckert
Functions
1. Proposed the first electronic digital
computer to solve ballistics problems
2. could perform 300 multiplications per
second

On its test run on February of 1946, the ENIAC

took only hours to solve a nuclear physics that
would previously have required 100 years of
calculation by physicist.
Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)

- John Von Neumann (Hungarian-born

mathematician) proposed a modified version of
the ENIAC
- employ binary arithmetic
- simpler computer circuitry
- have stored program capability
- also proposed wiring a permanent set of
instructions within the computer and placing
these operations under a central control
 - further proposed that the instruction
codes governing the operations be stored in
the same way that the data we stored – as
binary number
- thus, the EDVAC would have no need for
special instruction wiring. Instead, it would
process instructions by the same mechanism
and as it processed data.
EDSAC – Electronic Delay Storage Automatic
Calculator
- honor went to an English-made
computer
- the designer build a machine that had
more accurate memory with smaller capacity
than the EDVAC
 Differences between
EDVAC to MARK 1 and ENIAC
EDVAC MARK 1 and ENIAC

1. Binary arithmetic 1. Used decimal

2. Stored programs arithmetic in all
3. Simple circuit calculations
4. Proposed wiring a permanent set 2. No need for instruction
of instructions within the wiring
computer and placing these
operations under a central control
5. Instruction of codes governing the
operations be stored in the same
way that have data were stored as
binary circuit
 on/off switches in digital computers
• earliest:
– electromechanical relays
• solenoid with mechanical contact points
• physical switch closes when electricity animates magnet
• 1940’s:
– vacuum tubes
• no physical contacts to break or get dirty
• became available in early 1900’s
• mainly used in radios at first
• 1950’s to present
– transistors
• invented at Bell Labs in 1948
• John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley
• Nobel prize, 1956
electromechanical relay
photo of an electromechanical relay
 transistor evolution
• first transistor made from materials
including a paper clip and a razor
blade

later packaged in small IC’s

eventually came VLSI

Very Large Scale Integration
millions of transistors per chip
 the integrated circuit (IC)
• invented separately by 2 people ~1958
– Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments
– Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor (1958-59)
• 1974
– Intel introduces the 8080 processor
– one of the first “single-chip” microprocessors
IC’s are fabricated many at a time