History of Computers

• The history of the computer

Abacus (500 BC)

• The abacus was probably the original mechanical counting device.
• It's effectiveness has stood the test of time.
• It is still used to illustrate the principles

Napier's Bone (1617)

• John Napier, a Scotsman, invented logarithms in 1617.
• Logarithms allow multiplication to be performed via addition.
• The logarithm of each operand was originally obtained from a printed table.

Oughtred Slide Rule (1632)

• William Oughtred developed the slide rule in England.
• Napier's invention led to the slide rule.
• The first slide rule was built in england in 1632.
• Slide rules were still in use in the 1960s by NASA engineers working on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.

Pascaline Calculator (1642 AD)

• The Pascaline calculator was designed by Blaise Pascal, a mathematician and philosopher.
• This small calculator could add and subtract numbers correctly.

Leibniz Calculator (1673)

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz built a four-function calculator (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division).
• It's called the stepped reckoner because it employed fluted drums with ten flutes arranged around their circumference in a stair-step fashion, instead of gears.

The Jaquet-Droz dolls (1750 AD)

• The eighteenth-century Jaquet-Droz doll can write any sequence of forty letters.
• This is under control of a set of pegs in a plate in its back.
• It dips its pen into the ink, and follows the writing with its eyes and has a wrist controlled in three axes.

Jacquad's Weaving Loom (1801)

• Joseph-Marie Jacquad (1753-1871) created holes strategically punched in a card, to direct the movement of needles, thread, and fabric.
• This creates elaborate patterns known as Jacquad weaves.

Babbage's Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine (1842 AD)

• Charles Babbage envisioned a steam-powered "differential engine" and then an "analytical engine" that would perform tedious calculations accurately.
• Ada Augusta Lovelace helped Babbage to translated his work, adding here own extensive footnotes.
• She suggested that punched cards could be prepared to instruct Babbage's engine to repeat certain operations

Hollerith's Tabulating Machine (1890 AD)

• Herman Hollerith, a statistician with the U.S. Census Bureau, created an electromechanical punched-card system to compile the 1890 census.
• Hollerith's company grew and merged with other companies, and eventually became the International Business

ENIAC (1945 AD)

• ENIAC used 18,000 vacuum tubes.
• The lights would dim in Philadelphia whenever ENIAC was turned on.
• The ENIAC was 10 feet high, and long.

John von Neumann's Computer (1946 AD)

• John von Neumann and his associates introduced the concept for a stored program computer.
• With this concept, the computer's program is stored in the internal memory with the data.

The first video game on computer (1960 AD)

• The first video game, "Space War" in 1960 was programmed to be played on the PDP-1.

Intel first microprocessor (1971 AD)

• The microprocessor is a computer that has been made on a single 'chip' of silicon about 4 to 6 millimeters square and 1/2 millimeter thick.
• A minimum of a few thousand transistors must be on the smallest computer, and this many were first put on a single chip in 1971.
• The first microprocessor (Intel 4004) was a 4-bit chip, manipulated 4 bits of data at once, with a clock speed of 100,000 hertz.

The first PC (1975 AD)

• The first commercially available microcomputer, the Altair 8800, was the first machine to be called a "personal computer".
• It had 64K of memory along with an open 100-line bus structure.
• The kit to build it was sold for about $400.

Apple II Computer (1977 AD)

• The Apple II computer was introduced
• It was developed by Steve

IBM PC (1981)

• IBM entered into the personal computer ring in 1981 with its announcement of the IBM Personal Computer, or IBM PC.
• By the end of 1982, 835,000 had been sold.
• Software vendors began to orient their products to the IBM PC, many companies began offering IBM-PC compatibles or clones.

Apple Macintosh (1984)

• Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh desktop computer in 1984.
• GUI began to change the complexion of the software industry with things like Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointing devices.
• The Macintosh computer was not the first to utilize GUI tech as a 1970 scientist at Xerox's Palo created the first GUI.

Multimedia PC (1990)

• A multimedia PC specification setting the minimum hardware requirements for a PC was announced in 1990.