History of computing

Abacus
 Before the 1500s, in Europe calculations were made with an
abacus. Abacus was invented around 500BC. It was available in
many cultures like China, Mesopotamia, Japan Rome and Greece
 The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting
frame.
 It is a calculating tool that was in use centuries before the
adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still
widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and
elsewhere.
 Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with
beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones
moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal.
The user of an abacus is called an abacist

Pascaline
 In 1642, Blaise Pascal (French mathematician) invented
mechanical calculator called Pascaline.
 Pascaline, also called Arithmetic Machine, the first calculator or
adding machine. It could only do addition and subtraction, with
numbers being entered by manipulating its dials.
 Pascal invented the machine for his father, a tax collector. so it
was the first business machine too. He built 50 of them over the
next 10 years.
 In 1671, Gottfried Von Leibniz (German mathematician)
extended pascaline to do multiplication, division and square root.
 None of the machines discussed above (abacus and pascaline)
had memory and they required human intervention at each step.

Difference Engine
 In 1822 Charles Babbage (English mathematician) called the
father of computer by some people developed the Difference
Engine. A difference engine is an automatic mechanical
calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.
 The name derives from the method of divided differences, a way
to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of
polynomial coefficients.
 Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions, functions
commonly used by both navigators and scientists, can be
approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute
many useful sets of numbers.
 It was designed to automate the computation of polynomial
equation. This machine implemented some storage . From time to
time Babbage changed the capacity of the Engine.

Difference Engine
Difference Engine
No. 1, portion,1832

Analytical Engine
 In 1833 Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine but he
died before he could build it. It was build after his death.
 The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-
purpose computer designed by Charles Babbage.
 It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's
Difference engine, a design for a mechanical computer.
 The Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit,
control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and
integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-
purpose computer.

Analytical Engine
Trial model of a part of the Analytical Engine, built by Babbage, as
displayed at the Science Museum (London)

Punch Card Machine
 Major development in 1886
 The first card machine which was electrically activated.
 It was used by Hollerith to compute the statistics of the 1890
US census.
 Till 1960s the punched card system was the chief mode of
processing data.

First Digital Computer
 In 1937, H.A. Aiken of Harvard University began work to
design a fully automatic calculating machine.
 In 1944, the design became reality and it was named MARK I
 It could accept data from punch cards, store them in memory
and make calculations
 It could be programmed
 Perform arithmetic and logical operations

First Electronic Computer
 ENIAC(Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was
the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was digital and
capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of
computing problems.
 ENIAC was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables
for the United States Army.
 It was then announced as “Giant brain”
 It was introduced in 1947
 Contains vacuum tubes, registers, capacitors and switches
 It was much faster than MARK I

First Computer to Use Stored Program
 EDSAC (Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer) was
first introduce the stored program concept.
 It was designed and completed in 1949 at Cambridge
University
 It used vacuum tubes
 It was little faster than the ENIAC

First Commercially Produced
Computer
 UNIVAC -I (Universal automatic computer) built in 1946
 It could process numeric as well as alphabetic data.
 It used vacuum tubes.
 It used magnetic tape for data input and output, first time ever
 After introducing transistor the size and cost reduced and the
speed increased

Generation of Computer
 The generation of computer can be described with the
technology used and developed day after day.
 First generation (1942-1955): vacuum tube
 Second generation (1956-1963): transistor
 Third generation (1964-1971): integrated circuit
 Fourth generation (1971- present): microprocessor
 Fifth generation (present and beyond): artificial
intelligence

First Generation Computer
 Also called the vacuum tube based generation.
 The first generation computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry
and magnetic drums for memory.
 Input system was based on punch card and output system was on
printouts.
 Machine (Binary) languages are the only languages understood
by computers.
 They were enormous in size, taking up entire rooms.
 They were very expensive to operate. It took a great deal of
electricity to operate as a result a lot of heat was produced which
often caused the malfunctions.
 The UNIVAC and ENIAC are the examples of first generation
computers.

Second Generation Computer
 Called as the transistor based generation.
 In second generation transistors were used for circuitry as
transistors replaced vacuum tubes.
 Computers still relied on punched cards for input and printouts
for output.
 Second generation computers were moved to symbolic or
assembly language from binary machine language.
 Computers became smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy
efficient and more reliable than their first generation
predecessors.
 Example: IBM 1401, CDC 1604

Third Generation Computer
 Called as the IC or integrated circuit based generation.
 In third generation semiconductor materials (IC) were used for
circuitry.
 Computer chips both for CPU and memory were composed of
semiconductor materials or in other words IC.
 Capable of running more operations simultaneously.
 users interacted with computer through keyboard for input and
monitor for output.
 Computers became much smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy
efficient and more reliable than their second generation
predecessors.
 Example: IBM 360, Honeywell 600

Fourth Generation Computer
 Called as the microprocessor based generation.
 In first three generation the pivot or focus of development was
the circuitry. And the intention was to reduce the size and make
the computer more energy efficient by reducing power
consumption.
 However the computers became faster and cheaper in those days
than ancient time.
 But in fourth generation the pivot or focus of development was
the processor or the brain. And the intention was to make the
computer more and more faster, efficient and reliable.
 As a result microprocessor was introduced which was very
smaller and faster than earlier processor.

Fourth Generation Computer
 Three basic characteristics that differentiate microprocessors
from earlier processors:
 Instruction set: microprocessor functions by executing set of
instructions.
 Bandwidth: the number of bits processed in a single instruction
by the microprocessor.
 Clock speed: the clock speed determines how many instructions
the microprocessor can execute per second.
 The fourth generation computers was also adorned with the GUI,
the mouse and handheld devices.
 The Intel 4004chip, developed in 1971 was the first
microprocessor. In 1981 IBM introduced its first computer for
home user and in 1984 apple introduced their macintosh

Fifth Generation Computer
 Fifth generation computers are in developmental stage which is based
on the artificial intelligence. The goal of the fifth generation is to develop
the device which could respond to natural language input and are
capable of learning and self-organization. Quantum computation and
molecular and nanotechnology will be used in this technology. So we
can say that the fifth generation computers will have the power of
human intelligence. The characteristics:
 The fifth generation computers will use super large scale integrated
chips.
 They will have artificial intelligence.
 They will be able to recognize image and graphs.
 Fifth generation computer aims to be able to solve highly complex
problem including decision making, logical reasoning.
 They will be able to use more than one CPU for faster processing speed.
 Fifth generation computers are intended to work with natural language.

References
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
 http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/

25
Md. Shakhawat Hossain
Student of Department of Computer Science &
Engineering
University of Rajshahi
E-mail: mshimul86@gmail.com

History of computing

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History of computing