SUMMARY OF HISTORY OF COMPUTER
Pre-Mechanical
Equipment / tools
Ishango bone - is a bone tool, dated to the Upper
Paleolithic era, around 18,000 to 20,000 BC. It is a
dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon.
It has a series of tally marks carved in three
columns running the length of the tool. It was
found in 1960 in Belgian Congo.
Lebombo Bone is a baboon's fibula with 29
distinct notches, discovered within the Border Cave
in the Lebombo Mountains of Swaziland.
Wolf bone is a prehistoric artefact discovered in
1937 in Czechoslovakia during excavations at
Vestonice, Moravia, led by Karl Absolon. Dated to
the Aurignacian, approximately 30,000 years ago,
the bone is marked with 55 marks which some
believe to be tally marks. The head of an ivory
Venus figurine was excavated close to the bone.
Counting rods are small bars, typically 3
14 cm long, that were used by
mathematicians for calculation in ancient
China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. They
are placed either horizontally or vertically
to represent any integer or rational
number.
The written forms based on them are
called rod numerals. They are a true
positional numeral system with digits for
19 and a blank for 0, from the Warring
states period (circa 475 BCE) to the 16th
century.
Mechanical
Inventor / equipment
Salamis Tablet was an early counting device (also
known as a "counting board") dating from around
300 B.C. that was discovered on the island of
Salamis in 1846. A precursor to the abacus, it is
thought that it represents an Ancient Greek means
of performing mathematical calculations common
in the ancient world. Pebbles (calculi) were placed
at various locations and could be moved as
calculations were performed. The marble tablet
itself has dimensions of approximately.
Suan Pan is an abacus of Chinese origin first
described in a 190 CE book of the Eastern Han
Dynasty
table-yupana (or archaeological yupana): a system
of trays of different sizes and materials, carved at
the top of the device into geometric boxes, into
which seeds or pebbles were placed, presumably
for performing complex arithmetic calculations.
The first of these tables was found in 1869 in the
province of Cuenca (Ecuador) and marked the
beginning of systematic studies on these objects.
All archaeological finds are very different from
each other.
yupana of Poma de Ayala: a picture on page 360
of El primer nueva cornica y buen gobierno
written by the chronicler of the Indies Felipe
Guaman Poma de Ayala, representing a 5x4
chessboard. The picture, although having some
similarities with the majority of table-yupana,
presents several differences from these, first of all,
the shape of the boxes (rectangles), when those of
table-yupanas are polygons of varying shape.
quipu, or knot-record (also called khipu), was a
method used by the Incas and other ancient Andean
cultures to keep records and communicate
information. Using a wide variety of colours,
strings, and sometimes several hundred knots all
tied in various ways at various heights, quipu could
record dates, statistics, accounts, and even
represent, in abstract form, key episodes from
traditional folk stories and poetry. In recent years
scholars have also challenged the traditional view
that quipu were merely a memory aid device and
Electro-Mechanical
Inventor / Equipment
Torpedo Data Computer (TDC) was an early
electromechanical analog computer used for
torpedo fire-control on American submarines
during World War II.
Tabulating Machine, capable of processing
fifteen-digit numbers, printing out results and
rounding off to eight digits invented by Pehr and
Advard Scheutz.
Comptometer is a type of mechanical (or electro-
mechanical) adding machine. The comptometer
was the first adding device to be driven solely by
the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in
an array of vertical and horizontal columns.
Introduced by Dorr Felt.
Punch card or punched card (or punchcard or
Hollerith card or IBM card), is a piece of stiff paper
that contains digital information represented by the
presence or absence of holes in predefined
positions. Now, punched cards were widely used
throughout the 19th century for controlling textile
looms and in the late 19th and early 20th century
for operating fairground organs and related
instruments. It was used through the 20th century
in unit record machines for input, processing, and
data storage. Early digital computers used punched
cards as the primary medium for input of both
computer programs and data, with offline data
entrykey punch machines. Some voting machines
use punched cards.
Millionaire, the first efficeint four-function
calculator invented by Otto shweiger, a Swiss
Engineer.
Electronic
Inventor / Equipment
ENIAC was the world first successful electronic
computer which was develops by the two scientists
namely J. P. Eckert and J. W. Mauchy. It was the
beginning of first generation computer. The full
form of ENIAC is Electronic Numeric
Integrated And Calculator ENIAC was a very
huge and big computer and its weight was 30 tones.
It could store only limited or small amount of
information. Initially in the first generation
computer the concept of vacuum tubes was used. A
vacuum tube was such an electronic component
which had very less work efficiency and so it could
not work properly and it required a large cooling
system.
Transister
As the development moved further, the second
generation computers knocked the door. In this
generation, transistors were used as the electronic
component instead of vaccum tubes .A transistors
is much smaller in the size than that of a vaccum
tube. As the size of electrons components
decreased from vaccum tube of transistor, the size
of computer also decreased and it became much
smaller than that of earlier computer.
Integrated circuit
The third generation computers were invented in
the year 1964. In this generation of computer, IC
(Integrated circuits) was used as the electronic
component for computers. The development of IC
gave birth to a new field of microelectronics. The
main advantage of IC is not only its small size but
its superior performance and reliability than the
previous circuits. It was first developed by T.S
Kilby. This generation of computer has huge
storage capacity and higher calculating speed.
Personal Computer
This is the generation where we are working today.
The computers which we see around us belong to
the fourth generation computers. Micro processor
is the main concept behind this generation of
computer.
A microprocessor is a single chip (L.S.I circuit),
which is used in a computer for any arithmetical or
go so far as to suggest that quipu may have been logical functions to be performed in any program.
progressing towards narrative records and so The honaur of developing microprocessor goes to
becoming a viable alternative to written language Ted Hoff of U.S.A. He developed first micro-
just when the Inca Empire collapsed. processor, the Intel 4004, as he was working for
Napiers Bones Intel Corporation, U.S.A with the use of
As the necessity demanded, scientist started microprocessor in the fourth generation computers,
inventing better calculating device. In thus process the size of computer become very fast and efficient.
John Napiers of Scotland invented a calculating It is evident that the next generation of computer
device, in the year 1617 called the Napier Bones. In i.e. fifth generation will be developed soon. In that
the device, Napiers used the bone rods of the generation, computer will possess artificial
counting purpose where some no. is printed on intelligence and it would be able to take self
these rods. These rods that one can do addition, decisions like a human being.
subtraction, multiplication and division easily.
Pascal's calculator
In the year 1642, Blaise Pascal a French scientist
invented an adding machine called Pascals
calculator, which represents the position of digit
with the help of gears in it.
Leibnz Calculator
In the year 1671, 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.
Analytical Engine
In the year 1833, a scientist form England knows to
be Charles Babbage invented such a machine.
Which could keep our data safely? This device was
called Analytical engine and it deemed the first
mechanical computer. It included such feature
which is used in todays computer language. For
this great invention of the computer, Sir Charles
Babbage is also known as the father of the
computer.