A Computer is an electronic device that can perform a variety of operations according to a set of instructions called program
THE HISTORY OF COMPUTER
1 ABACUS 2500 BC
ABACUS is the first known calculating machine used for counting. It is made of beads and rods. It is mainly used for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
2 PASCAL'S CALCULATOR
In the year 1642, Blaise Pascal a french scientist invested an adding machine called PASCAL'S CALCULATOR, which represents the position of digit with the help of gears in it.
3 Napier's bones is a manually-operated calculating device created by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland for the calculation of products and quotients of numbers. ... Napier published his version in 1617. printed in Edinburgh, dedicated to his patron Alexander Seton.
4. LEIBNIZ CALCULATOR
In the year 1967, a German mathematics, Gottfried Leibniz modified the pascal calculator and he developed a machine. which could perform various calculation based on multiplication and division as well.
5 ANALYTICAL ENGINE
The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage.[2][3] It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's difference engine, which was a design for a simpler mechanical computer.
6 FIRSTT GENERATION (VACUUM TUBES) 1940-1956
The computers of first generation used vacuum tubes as the basic. components for memory and circuitry for CPU (Central Processing Unit). These tubes, like electric bulbs, produced a lot of heat and the installations used to fuse frequently.. Therefore, they were very expensive and only large organizations were able to afford it.
Second Generation Computers
• The replacement of vacuum tubes by transistors saw
the advent of the second generation of computing.
• Although first invented in 1947, transistors weren’t
used significantly in computers until the end of the
1950s.
• They were a big improvement over the vacuum tube,
despite still subjecting computers to damaging levels of
heat.
• However they were hugely superior to the vacuum
tubes, making computers smaller, faster, cheaper and
less heavy on electricity use.
(1956-1963)
• They still relied on punched card for input/printouts.
• The language evolved from cryptic binary language to
symbolic (‘assembly’) languages. T
• his meant programmers could create instructions in
words. About the same time high level programming
languages were being developed (early versions of
COBOL and FORTRAN).
• Transistor-driven machines were the first computers to
store instructions into their memories – moving from
magnetic drum to magnetic core ‘technology’. The early
versions of these machines were developed for the
atomic energy industry.
Third Generation Computers(1964-71)
• By this phase, transistors were now
being miniaturised and put on silicon
chips (called semiconductors).
• This led to a massive increase in speed
and efficiency of these machines.
• These were the first computers where
users interacted using keyboards and
monitors which interfaced with an
operating system, a significant leap up
from the punch cards and printouts.
• This enabled these machines to run
several applications at once using a
central program which functioned to
monitor memory.
• As a result of these advances which
again made machines cheaper and
smaller, a new mass market of users
emerged during the ‘60s.
Fourth Generation Computers Fourth Generation of computers was between 1971 – 1980. These computers used the VLSI technology or the Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits technology. Therefore they were also known as the microprocessors. Intel was the first company to develop a microprocessor.
Fifth Generation Computers
• Computer devices with artificial intelligence are still
in development, but some of these technologies are
beginning to emerge and be used such as voice
recognition.
• AI is a reality made possible by using parallel
processing and superconductors. Leaning to the
future, computers will be radically transformed again
(Present and beyond)
by quantum computation, molecular and nano
technology.
• The essence of fifth generation will be using these
technologies to ultimately create machines which can
process and respond to natural language, and have
capability to learn and organise t
