M1/Lesson 1 - Computer History

This device allows users to make computations using a system of sliding beads arranged on a rack.

Abacus

When was abacus invented?

Abacus, a simple counting aid, may have been invented in Babylonia (now Iraq) in the 4th century BC

Considered the first computer

Abacus

In 1642, he invented a calculating device called "Adding Machine”

Blaise Pascal

(French mathematician and philosopher)

One of the first and earliest mechanical devices used for calculating

Pascaline (originally called numerical wheel calculator)

T/F

Pascal's invention utilized a train of 8 moveable dials or cogs to add sums of up to 8 figures long.

As one dial turned 10 notches - or a complete revolution - it mechanically turned the next dial.

True

automated the process of calculation

adding machine by blaise pascal

pros and cons of adding machine

pros: provided a fair degree of accuracy and speed.

\
cons:

\-slow by modern standards

\-only performed addition. not multiplication nor division

Supposed to be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide and calculate square roots but the device never worked properly

stepped reckoner

developed the stepped reckoner

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Father of Computers

Charles Babbage

(English mathematician and professor)

In 1822, Charles Babbage persuaded the British government to finance his design to build a machine that would calculate tables for logarithms called the

Difference Engine

Function of Difference Engine

calculate numbers to 20th place and print them at 4 digits per minute.

Used to perform a variety of calculations by following a set of instructions or programs stored on punch cards

Analytical engine

by charles babbage

This machine was only designed but never built

Analytical engine

by charles babbage

He used 10,000 punch cards, programmed a loom to weave a portrait of himself in black and white silk

Joseph Jacquard

The First Computer Programmer 

Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace

inventor of a “punch-card tabulation machine” that revolutionized the speed with which reams of data could be processed.

Herman Hollerith

example of a Tabulating Machine Company

IBM - International Business Machines

He thought he could create a modern and functioning model of Babbage's Analytical Engine.

HOWARD AIKEN (1900-1973)

Howard Aiken succeeded in securing a grant of 1 million dollars for his proposed

Automatic Sequence Calculator

Mark I for short (From IBM)

transformed Babbage's dream into reality and succeeded in putting IBM's name on the forefront of the computer industry.

From 1944 on, modern computers would forever be associated with digital intelligence.

The Mark I

First electronic computer was built by

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry

the computer of John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry used

binary number system of 1 and 0

Binary system is still used today

definition of ENIAC

Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (1946)

What is ENIAC

a machine that computed at speeds 1,000 times faster than the Mark I was capable of only 2 years earlier

Using 18,00-19,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors and 5 million soldered joints this massive instrument required the output of a small power station to operate it.

ENIAC

It could do nuclear physics calculations in two hours and the system's program could be changed by rewiring a panel

ENIAC

An electronic machine accepts data, processes it according to instructions and provides the results as new data

Computer

Can make simple decisions and comparisons

computer

List of instructions written in a special language that the computer understands

program

he developed “Universal Machine” (1930s-1940s)

Alan Turning

envisioned a computer that could perform any different tasks by simply changing a program rather than by changing electronic components

Alan Turning

\-Developed stored programs concept

\-Program would be stored in CPU or Central Processing Unit

John Von Newmann

In the laboratories of Bell Telephone, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley discovered the "transfer resistor"; later labeled the

Transistor

Advantages of Transistor

\-increased reliability

\-consumed 1/20 of the electricity of vacuum tubes

\-were a fraction of the cost

This tiny device had a huge impact on and extensive implications for modern computers.

In 1956, this device won its creators the Noble Peace Prize for their invention.

Transistor