University of Wah,

Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Course Code: MTE-101

Course Title: Computer and Programming
Assignment No. 02
Submitted by:
Usman Ghani

Submitted to:
Ma’am Nazo Haroon

Date of Submission:
8th Oct, 2019

Department of Mechatronics Engineering

Wah Engineering College
Wah Cantt
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Contents:

History of Computers ______________________________________ 3

Abacus ___________________________________________________________________ 3
Napier's Bones _____________________________________________________________ 3
Pascaline __________________________________________________________________ 4
Stepped Reckoner or Leibnitz wheel ___________________________________________ 5
Difference Engine __________________________________________________________ 5
Analytical Engine __________________________________________________________ 6
Tabulating Machine ________________________________________________________ 6
Differential Analyzer________________________________________________________ 7
Mark I____________________________________________________________________ 7

Generations of Computers __________________________________ 8

First Generation Computers _________________________________________________ 8
Second Generation Computers _______________________________________________ 8
Third Generation Computers ________________________________________________ 9
Fourth Generation Computers _______________________________________________ 9
Fifth Generation Computers ________________________________________________ 10

References ______________________________________________ 10
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

History of Computers
The first counting device was used by the early people. They used sticks, stones and
bones as counting tools. As human mind and technology improved with time more computing
devices were developed.

Some of the popular computing devices starting with the first to recent ones are described
below;

Abacus

The history of computer begins with the birth of abacus which is believed to be the first
computer. It is said that Chinese invented Abacus around 4,000 years ago.

It was a wooden rack which has metal rods with beads mounted on them. The beads were
moved by the abacus operator according to some rules to perform arithmetic calculations.
Abacus is still used in some countries like China, Russia and Japan.

An image of this tool is shown below;

Figure 1 (Abacus)

Napier's Bones

It was a manually-operated calculating device which was invented by John Napier (1550-
1617) of Merchiston. In this calculating tool, he used 9 different ivory strips or bones marked
with numbers to multiply and divide. So, the tool became known as "Napier's Bones. It was also
the first machine to use the decimal point.
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Figure 2 (Napier's Bones)

Pascaline

Pascaline is also known as Arithmetic Machine or Adding Machine. It was invented

between 1642 and 1644 by a French mathematician-philosopher Biaise Pascal. It is believed that
it was the first mechanical and automatic calculator.

Pascal invented this machine to help his father, a tax accountant. It could only perform
addition and subtraction. It was a wooden box with a series of gears and wheels. When a wheel is
rotated one revolution, it rotates the neighboring wheel. A series of windows is given on the top
of the wheels to read the totals. An image of this tool is shown below;

Figure 3 (Pascaline)
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Stepped Reckoner or Leibnitz wheel

It was developed by a German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in

1673. He improved Pascal's invention to develop this machine. It was a digital mechanical
calculator which was called the stepped reckoner as instead of gears it was made of fluted drums.
See the following image;

Figure 4 (Stepped Reckoner or Leibnitz wheel)

Difference Engine

In the early 1820s, it was designed by Charles Babbage who is known as "Father of
Modern Computer". It was a mechanical computer which could perform simple calculations. It
was a steam driven calculating machine designed to solve tables of numbers like logarithm
tables.

Figure 5 (Difference Engine)

University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Analytical Engine

This calculating machine was also developed by Charles Babbage in 1830. It was a
mechanical computer that used punch-cards as input. It was capable of solving any mathematical
problem and storing information as a permanent memory.

Figure 6 (Analytical Engine)

Tabulating Machine

It was invented in 1890, by Herman Hollerith, an American statistician. It was a

mechanical tabulator based on punch cards. It could tabulate statistics and record or sort data or
information. This machine was used in the 1890 U.S. Census. Hollerith also started the
Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company which later became International Business Machine
(IBM) in 1924.

Figure 7 (Tabulating Machine)

University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Differential Analyzer

It was the first electronic computer introduced in the United States in 1930. It was an
analog device invented by Vannevar Bush. This machine has vacuum tubes to switch electrical
signals to perform calculations. It could do 25 calculations in few minutes.

Figure 8 (Differential Analyzer)

Mark I

The next major changes in the history of computer began in 1937 when Howard Aiken
planned to develop a machine that could perform calculations involving large numbers. In 1944,
Mark I computer was built as a partnership between IBM and Harvard. It was the first
programmable digital computer.

Figure 9 (Mark I)
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Generations of Computers
A generation of computers refers to the specific improvements in computer technology
with time. In 1946, electronic pathways called circuits were developed to perform the counting.
It replaced the gears and other mechanical parts used for counting in previous computing
machines.

In each new generation, the circuits became smaller and more advanced than the previous
generation circuits. The miniaturization helped increase the speed, memory and power of
computers. There are five generations of computers which are described below;

First Generation Computers

The first generation (1946-1959) computers were slow, huge and expensive. In these
computers, vacuum tubes were used as the basic components of CPU and memory. These
computers were mainly depended on batch operating system and punch cards. Magnetic tape and
paper tape were used as output and input devices in this generation;

Some of the popular first generation computers are;

o ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)

o EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
o UNIVACI( Universal Automatic Computer)
o IBM-701
o IBM-650

Second Generation Computers

The second generation (1959-1965) was the era of the transistor computers. These
computers used transistors which were cheap, compact and consuming less power; it made
transistor computers faster than the first generation computers.

In this generation, magnetic cores were used as the primary memory and magnetic disc
and tapes were used as the secondary storage. Assembly language and programming languages
like COBOL and FORTRAN, and Batch processing and multiprogramming operating systems
were used in these computers.

Some of the popular second generation computers are;

University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

o IBM 1620
o IBM 7094
o CDC 1604
o CDC 3600
o UNIVAC 1108

Third Generation Computers

The third generation computers used integrated circuits (ICs) instead of transistors. A
single IC can pack huge number of transistors which increased the power of a computer and
reduced the cost. The computers also became more reliable, efficient and smaller in size. These
generation computers used remote processing, time-sharing, multi programming as operating
system. Also, the high-level programming languages like FORTRON-II TO IV, COBOL,
PASCAL PL/1, ALGOL-68 were used in this generation.

Some of the popular third generation computers are;

o IBM-360 series
o Honeywell-6000 series
o PDP(Personal Data Processor)
o IBM-370/168
o TDC-316

Fourth Generation Computers

The fourth generation (1971-1980) computers used very large scale integrated (VLSI)
circuits; a chip containing millions of transistors and other circuit elements. These chips made
this generation computers more compact, powerful, fast and affordable. These generation
computers used real time, time sharing and distributed operating system. The programming
languages like C, C++, and DBASE were also used in this generation.

Some of the popular fourth generation computers are;

o DEC 10
o STAR 1000
o PDP 11
o CRAY-1(Super Computer)
o CRAY-X-MP(Super Computer)
University of Wah,
Department of Mechatronics Engineering.

Fifth Generation Computers

In fifth generation (1980-till date) computers, the VLSI technology was replaced with
ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration). It made possible the production of microprocessor chips
with ten million electronic components. This generation computers used parallel processing
hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence) software. The programming languages used in this
generation were C, C++, Java, .Net, etc.

Some of the popular fifth generation computers are;

o Desktop
o Laptop
o NoteBook
o UltraBook
o ChromeBook

References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMSztKelWQ8

https://www.javatpoint.com/history-of-computer