DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER

HISTORICAL REVIEW

Mr.Suman Jyoti
Civil Engineering Running
The development sequence of the computer from
early counting to the present state can be categorized
broadly into two types.

• Mechanical Era, and

The need for counting, computing or processing data has been with man
from the beginning

• Electromechanical & Electronic Era

The electronic era was the time when computers were made with
electronics components

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 ABACUS

Abacus was the first computing tool used for counting about 3000 years ago and
consisted of a wooden rack holding parallel rods on which beads were strung.

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 NAPIER’S BONE

A Scottish scholar, John Napier invented a calculating device called Napier’s

Bone. It consists of nine pieces of square cards with numbers covered on
them. It is used for multiplication and division. He also evolved the system
of algorithms which greatly assisted in arithmetic calculations
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 SLIDE RULE

The slide rule was invented by William Oughtred in 1620 which was
made by using the principle of logarithms. A simple slide rules
consists of two graduated scales of which one scale slips upon the
other. With the proper alignment of the two rulers, the user can
perform simple multiplication and division problems
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 PASCALINE

A significant advance in the evolution of computing systems was the

invention of a mechanical adding machine in 1642 by the French scientist
Blaise Pascal. Pascaline contains eight dials, gears and wheels. The numbers
were entered by dialling a series of numbered wheels where the movement
of wheels started at 9 and moved to 0. An automatic carry over system was
accomplished by rotating the adjacent wheel by one digit. This machine was
capable of doing only addition and subtraction. Multiplication could be
performed by repeated addition and division performed by repeated
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subtraction.
 STEPPED RECKONER

Goth Friend Von Leibnitz, a German mathematician invented improved form

of Pascaline in 1671. It was incorporated with additional sets of wheels that
could perform addition, subtraction as well as multiplication and division. The
numbers were moved in steps from one column to other when the
multiplication or the division of two numbers was performed.
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 JACQUARD’S LOOM

A French inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a loom in 1801. This

loom used punched cards to produce certain pattern in the woven cloth.
The function of that loom depended upon the absence or presence of holes
on the punched cards. This concept gave the idea of binary digits: Yes or No,
or 1 or 0. It could be considered as a first programmable device. 8
DIFFERENCE & ANALYTICAL ENGINE

Charles Babbage was an English mathematician. He invented an automatic

mechanical calculating machine called Difference Engine in 1822. That
device was able to store program, perform calculation and print the result
automatically.
After working on his Difference Engine, Babbage was encouraged and came
up with another device called Analytical Engine in 1833. It was the first fully
complete his engine due to lack of required technologies. All the modern
computers are based on Babbage’s idea and technology. And he is also
known as Father of Modern Computer Science. 9
Lady Ada Augusta Lovelance: She was the student of Charles Babbage who
helped to correct some errors in the Babbage’s work. She suggested him to
use binary number system instead of decimal number system. She is known
as first computer programmer. She made some programs for Analytical
Engine. 1979, the US Defence Department named a programming language
ADA in her honour.

TABULATING MACHINE
Dr. Herman Hollerith was an American Census
Statistician. He developed Tabulating Machine
in 1887. The machine was used to tabulate US
Census Record. His tabulating system made
practical use of the punched card in data
processing and became the nucleus of today’s
computing fields.

Hollerith established the Tabulating Machine

Company in 1986 to manufacture his
inventions. This company later merged with
other companies to form a big International
Business Machine (IBM) corporation which is
largest computer manufacturing company in
the world. 10
 MARK - I

In 1937, Howard Aiken, professor of Harvard University developed an

Automatic Calculating Machine called MARK – I. This was completed after
seven years in 1944. It is also called Automatic Sequence Controlled
Calculator. It was the first electromechanical computer. It was huge in size
and had 1800 vacuum tubes to store data in the memory. It used a program
to guide it through a long series of calculations.
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 ABC
(ATANSOFF BERRY COMPUTER)

ABC is the short form of Atansoff Berry Computer. It was the first digital computer
designed by Dr. John Atansoff and his assistant Clifford Berry in 1942. It used
vacuum tubes as a main memory. This computer was designed for solving System
of Simultaneous Linear Equations. This machine was mainly used by military to
computer firing and ballistic.

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 ENIAC
(ELECTRONIC NUMERICAL INTEGRATOR & CALCULATOR)

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator) was the first

electronic general purpose computer invented by John W Mauchly and John
Presper Eckert in 1946. It was 10 feet tall and occupied a space of 30 X 30
feet. It contained 1800 vacuum tubes as main memories. It required about
150 KW of power. It could perform many complex arithmetic operations in
few seconds.
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 EDSAC
(ELECTRONIC DELAY STORAGE AUTOMATIC COMPUTER)

EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer) was the first operational stored
program computer. It was invented by Maurice Wickes at Cambridge University, in 1949.
It contained 3, 000 vacuum tubes and it required 30 KW of electric power. In this
computer programs were input using paper tape and output results were printed on a
teletype page printer.
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 UNIVAC – I
(UNIVERSAL AUTOMATIC COMPUTER – I)

UNIVAC – I(Universal Automatic Computer – I) was developed by John Mauchly and

John Presper Eckert in 1951. It was the first general purpose electronic digital
computer. This computer consisted of magnetic tape for data input and output. It had
10, 000 vacuum tubes. This computer was used for data processing till 1963 in the USA.
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 EDVAC
(ELECTRONIC DISCRETE VARIABLE AUTOMATIC COMPUTER)

EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)

was designed by Moore School personnel and the Ballistics
Research Laboratory of the US Army in 1952. It was able to
store programs. This concept was introduced by a Hungarian
mathematician John Von Newmann in 1947.
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 THANKS
For Watching this History.

By:- Suman Jyoti

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