A Brief History of Computers. The Prehistoric Era 15,000,000,000 BC - 409 BC When man learned to count

A Brief History

of Computers

The Prehistoric Era

15,000,000,000 BC - 409 BC

When man learned to count

The Prehistoric Era

300,000 BC Everything had to be

portable in order to survive……….

50,000BC to 20,000 BC But once man decided to

settle, they started to collect things…. And started to count

The first thing man used to count with were

Fingers

Latin word “Digit” refers to a finger or toe….. It also refers to a numerical quantity.

As man collected more things he had to represent them different ways….. The word calculate is from the Latin word “calculus” which means

pebble

The Prehistoric Era continued

3000 BC The acabus

1900 BC Stonehenge as

a possible calendar


1500 BC The first clocks known as

water clocks

the oldest found in Egypt

300 BC Buddists used the first written symbols for

numbers



The first recorded use of the number “0” was at 600 AD

Interestingly Egyptians already used fractions in 5500 BC

The eye of Horus, an Egyptian deity of this

time. This was used to show fractions of hekat

(appr. 4.8 liters) a unit used to measure grain.

The Era of Antiquity 1620 - 1671

The era of calculator devices

The Era of Antiquity 1620 - 1671

Had multiple calculator devices that had no memory and no means to output the results other than dials or indicators

Ruler with logarithmic scales made by Gunter

First calculator with rotating gears to increase the tens position

First logarithmic slide rule

The Pre Industrial Era 1886-1899

Calculators that have single predefined purposes.

Extra important inventions and discoveries


Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound recording 1886

1887 The first key driven adding machines were created

1888 The first calculator which does addition,subtraction, multiplication and division

1892 First adding machines

that also print out

Electromechanical adding

and sorting machine

(used punch cards)



1898 Valdemar Poulsen invents a magnetic wire on

which data can be recorded. The principles of this invention lead to magnetic

tapes and hard disk drives

Sir Joseph John Thomson discovers the electron.

The Industrial Era (1947-)

The start of “Real” computers


1947 the first transistors

were created

The first generation of

modern programmed

electronic computers

was built with functioning

RAM


Computers required more than one floor and were huge!!! Transistors

Burnt out often


1953 First mass produced computer by IBM Had 1 kB of RAM


1958 the first integrated circuit was built

This replaced transistors on computers.

1972 the first video arcade game was created by Atari created the game Pong.


1981 The first portable personal computers were available Price $3000 IBM 5150 PC 4.77 MHz 8 bit 8088 CPU from Intel 64KB RAM, 40KB ROM, one 5.25-inch floppy drive (160KB capacity)

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." Bill Gates


Companies that existed 1981….. Apple IBM MicroSoft Xerox

Microsoft flight

simulator 1982

3.5” floppy by Sony (’82 – 280kB)

Sun, Compaq and Epson started in 1982

8” floppy disk (’71 – 79.7kB)

5.25” floppy disk (’76 – 87.5kB)


IBM generation of computers (CPU) 8088 80286 with 8086 chip 80386 80486

$4000 in1993

Pentium P2, P3, P4 Dual Core Tri & Quad Core etc


1985: Windows 1.0

First popular programming language in schools (1981/82) Basic

Resource

http://www.thocp.net/timeline/timeline.htm

Documents

A Brief History of Computers. The Prehistoric Era 15,000,000,000 BC - 409 BC When man learned to count