History of Computers 513

8/14/2019 History of Computers 513

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The History ofThe History of

ComputersComputers


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What is a computer?

A computer is an electronic machine that acceptsinformation (Data), processes it according to specific

instructions, and provides the results as new information.

Monitor

Floppy Disk

DriveSystem Unit

Keyboard

CD-ROM /DVD-ROM

Drive

Mouse


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I- Ancient CountingMachines

1- The Abacus (base 5)

(in ancient Babylon,

China, Europe)

2- The Roman NumeralsI II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X

3- The Arabic Numerals (base 10)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

An

cient

T

ime


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II- Mechanical CountingMachines

4- The Pascaline is a mechanical calculating deviceinvented by the French philosopher and mathematicianBlaise Pascal in 1642. (+)

1642


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1673

5- The Leibniz Wheelwas invented by thefamous mathematician Leibniz in 1673.

( + , - , * , / )


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6- Punched Cards were used by the French weaverJoseph Jacquard in 1810. The cards carried weavinginstructions for the looms, later this idea offered a

great use for storing info.

1810


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7- BabbagesDifference Engineswere calculating

machines made byCharles Babbage toproduce tables ofnumbers that would

be used by shipsnavigators.

185

2

1832

This device had mechanical problems similar to

those that plagued Pascal and Leibniz.


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The Invention of theVacuum Tube

8- Initially discovered byThomas Edison, the vacuumtube formed the buildingblock for the entireelectronics industry.

*Vacuum tubes were laterused as electron valves in

the 20th century to buildthe first electroniccomputers.

1883


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III- Electrical CountingMachines

along with punched

cards instead of mechanical gears.

9- The US census ofthe 1880 took 9years to compile

and led toinaccurate figures.

To solve theproblem, Herman

Hollerith invented acalculating machinethat used electricity

1888


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Holleriths machine was immenselysuccessful. The general count of thepopulation, then 63 million, took only 6 weeksto calculate!

Based on the success of his invention, HermanHollerith and some friends formed a company

that sold his invention all over the world. Thecompany eventually became known as:

International Business Machines IBM

1888


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10- A partial workingmodel of BabbagesAnalytical Engine

was completed in1910 by his sonused punched cardsto store numbers.

The design was nomore successfulthan itspredecessors.

1910


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11- MARK I was built by a team from IBM and HarvardUniversity. Mark I used mechanical telephoneswitches to store information. It accepted data onpunched cards, processed it and then output the

new data.

1943

51 feet long and weighed over 5 tons


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IV- Electronic CountingMachines

12- The ENIAC was the first US-built all-electronic computer built to performballistics calculations. (Away from IBM)

1946


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* It was 1000X faster than Mark I, but itdrew a lot of power that dimmed the

lights of Philadelphia when it wasswitched on due to the use of Vacuum

Tubes.

* Mark I: 5 Additions / sec.

* ENIAC: 5,000 Additions / sec.

* ENIAC was made of 18,000 vacuum

tubes.

1946


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ENIACs Problems:

1- short life of vacuum tubes

2- It runs a single program, which meansrewiring by a group of technicians isneeded to change the program!!!

Solution: the same group of researchersworked on another version of ENIACthat can store programs on punchedcards that are much easier to manage

and they came up with:


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EDVAC (electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)

(was never completed!)

13- UNIVAC (Universal AutomaticCalculator)

forty of these computers were sold tobusinesses. General Electric was the first

company to acquire a UNIVAC.

* The first UNIVACs were used in the USArmy, Air Force, Navy, and AtomicEnergy Commission.

1951


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The Effect of World War II

1938

Back in time to the days ofwar

* During WWII, the

German Navy developeda cipher machine namedEnigma. The Enigmamachine could

automatically encode amessage in such a waythat only anotherEnigma machine couldread decode it.


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The Effect of World War II

1938

* In 1938 the Polish Secret Servicemanaged to steal an Enigma machinethat was smuggled to England.

* Secretly the British developed acomputer named Colossus that coulddecipher as many as 2,000 messages

per day. That computer used Vacuumtubes and was the worlds first entirelydigital computer. Surprisingly, thoughColossus presented a similar technology

to that of ENIAC, it had only 2,400

T I ti th t h d


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Two Inventions that changedthe way computers are

built!!1946

1- The Transistor

The most significant single invention of

the modern era. It was invented by3 scsientists at At&Ts Bell Labs.

One of the first overseas companies was a Japanesecompany called Tokyo Telecommunications

Laboratory. The company had troubles paying thelicense fee ($25,000) that company became in 1956whats called now Sony! it replaced the Vacuum

tube.

* Transistors are smaller (sometimesmicrosco ic


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Transistors on a circuitboard

Transistor

Capacitor

Resistors

Two Inventions that changed


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Two Inventions that changedthe way computers are

built!!1961

The IC revolutionized theentire electronictechnology. Ex: ThePentium Processor contains

3.1 Million Transistors in

2- The (IC) Integrated Circuit

How the processor (CPU)


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How the processor (CPU)is placed on the

Motherboard

Intel 486

CPU

RAM


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1975 - 1981

The Altair The Apple I The Floppy

Disk

The Hard

Disk

MS-DOS


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1981 - 1993

The IBM PC The Compaq

portable Computer

The Apple

Macintosh

MS-Windows 3.0 The Pentium

Chip


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Intel Pentium Processors

PENTIUM

PENTIUM II

PENTIUM Pro

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History of Computers 513