CHAPTER 3

- HISTORY OF COMPUTING

PhD LAVINIA DOVLEAC

• It is difficult to define any kind of device as the earliest
computer. The definition of a computer has changed and
it is therefore impossible to identify the first computer.

• Many devices once called "computers" would no longer

qualify as such by today's standards.

Originally, the term "computer"

referred to A PERSON who performed numerical

calculations (a human computer), often with the aid of a
mechanical calculating device.
• EXAMPLES OF EARLY MECHANICAL COMPUTING DEVICES:

ABACUS

SLIDE RULE
ANTIKYTHERA MECHANISM
(which dates from about 150-100 BC).
• The end of the Middle Ages saw a re-invigoration of
European mathematics and engineering.

• Wilhelm Schickard's device was the first of a number of

mechanical calculators constructed by European
engineers in 1623.
CALCULATING CLOCK
• However, none of those devices fit the modern definition
of a computer because they could not be programmed.

• In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement

to the textile loom that used a series of punched paper
cards as a template to allow his loom to weave intricate
patterns automatically.

• The resulting Jacquard loom was an important step in the

development of computers because the use of punched
cards as a form of programmability.
THE JACQUARD
LOOM
was one of the first
programmable
devices.
• In 1837, Charles Babbage
was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable
mechanical computer that he called "The Analytical Engine".

Due to limited finance, Babbage never actually built his

Analytical Engine.
Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards
was performed for the U.S. Census in 1890 by tabulating
machines:
 designed by Herman Hollerith.
 manufactured by the Computing Tabulating Recording
Corporation, which later became IBM.
By the end of the 19th century a number of technologies
that would later prove useful in the realization of practical
computers had begun to appear:

• the punched card,

• Boolean algebra,
• the vacuum tube (thermionic valve) - invented in 1904 by
John Ambrose Fleming,
• the teleprinter.
 HISTORY OF COMPUTING - SHORT PRESENTATION

Ancient - 1940s
• Devices to make calculation easier have existed for
thousands of years.

1940s - 1960s
• The roots of the electronic digital stored-program computer
began in the 1940s with projects like ENIAC and the
Manchester Baby.
J Lyons, Accounting office, c.1900
The ENIAC itself, strangely, was a very personal computer. Now we
think of a personal computer as one which you carry around with you.
The ENIAC was actually one that you kind of lived inside
 In 1936:
Alan Turing presents the notion of a universal machine, later
called the Turing machine, capable of computing anything
that is computable. The central concept of the modern
computer was based on his ideas.

“The imitation game”

• By the late 1950s
some machines built with transistors instead of vacuum
tubes became the powerful ‘giant brains’ used in US
government and scientific research settings.

1953:
Grace Hopper develops the first
computer language, which
eventually becomes known as
COBOL.

SAGE radar operator

MOCAS (pronounced “MOH-cass”)
the world’s oldest computer program that’s still in active use.

 launched in 1958 by the United States Department of Defense

 used for keeping track of contracts and payments.

MOCAS is still used to take care of the records using an IBM 2098 model E-
10 mainframe.
1960s - 1980s
• By the 1960s computers were becoming common in
many different environments. Large businesses used
mainframes for data processing, while smaller
businesses, universities, and factories used
minicomputers.

System/360 computer
system, 1965
1964:
Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern
computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface
(GUI).

This marks the evolution of the computer from a

specialized machine for scientists and mathematicians
to technology that is more accessible to the general
public.
1971: Alan Shugart leads a team of IBM engineers who
invent the "floppy disk," allowing data to be shared
among computers.

1973: Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for

Xerox, develops Ethernet for connecting multiple
computers and other hardware.

Ethernet is the most common LAN

(Local Area Network) technology
in use today.
1970s - 1990s
• In 1970s, computers started the use of microprocessors. The
introduction of the IBM PC (ACORN) in 1981 was the
most important event of that decade, creating a standard that
is still in use today.

Price tag of $1,565: Two decades earlier, an IBM

 system unit,
computer often:
 keyboard
 cost as much as $9 million
 color/graphics capability.  required an air-conditioned
 display, quarter-acre of space and
 printer,  staff of 60 people to keep it fully
 two diskette drives, loaded with instructions.
 extra memory,
 communications,
 game adapter
 application packages — including one for text processing.
• More user-friendly machines such as the Apple
Macintosh (based on the Xerox Alto), combined with
more sophisticated software, resulted in computers that
were inexpensive and powerful, yet easy to use.
TRS-80 in school setting, c. 1982
1985:
Microsoft announce WINDOWS.
The first dot-com domain is registered: Symbolics.com

1990: HTML – HyperText Markup Language marked the raise

Of World Wide Web.

1993: Graphics and music by Pentium microprocessor

1996: Google search engine

1999: wi-fi

2004: Mozzila Firefox

2017: Molecular Informatics