History of Computers

The first counting device was used by the primitive 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;

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.

Computer napier bones 1

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;

Computer pascaline 1
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;

Computer Stepped reckoner or leibnitz wheel 1

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.

Computer Difference engine 1

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.

Computer Analytical engine 1

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.

Computer Tabulating machine 1

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.
Computer Differential analyzer 1

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.

Computer mark 1

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;

ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)

EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)

UNIVACI( Universal Automatic Computer)

IBM-701

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;

IBM 1620

IBM 7094

CDC 1604

CDC 3600

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;

IBM-360 series

Honeywell-6000 series
PDP(Personal Data Processor)

IBM-370/168

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++, DBASE were also
used in this generation.

Some of the popular fourth generation computers are;

DEC 10

STAR 1000

PDP 11

CRAY-1(Super Computer)

CRAY-X-MP(Super Computer)

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;

Desktop

Laptop

NoteBook
UltraBook

ChromeBook

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