History of Computer

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Early Devices

  1. The earliest known calculating device is the Abacus.
  2. Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculating machine called the Pascaline in 1642.
  3. The Pascaline could perform addition and subtraction.
  4. Charles Babbage is considered the Father of the Computer.
  5. Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine, which is considered the blueprint for the modern computer.
  6. Ada Lovelace is often regarded as the first computer programmer for her notes on the Analytical Engine.
  7. Herman Hollerith invented the Tabulating Machine, which used punched cards to process the 1890 US Census data.
  8. The company Herman Hollerith founded eventually became IBM.
  9. The Difference Engine was designed by Charles Babbage to automatically calculate polynomial functions.

Computer Generation

  1. The First Generation of computers (1946-1959) primarily used Vacuum Tubes as their main electronic component.
  2. The Second Generation of computers (1959-1965) replaced vacuum tubes with Transistors.
  3. The Third Generation of computers (1965-1971) introduced Integrated Circuits (ICs).
  4. The Fourth Generation of computers (1971-Present) is characterized by the use of Microprocessors (VLSI).
  5. The Fifth Generation of computers is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ULSI technology.
  6. ICs (Integrated Circuits) are typically made from the element Silicon.

Early Computers and Milestones

  1. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945.
  2. ENIAC was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly.
  3. The First Generation computers used Machine Language as their programming language.
  4. The concept of the Stored Program computer architecture is mainly credited to John von Neumann.
  5. EDVAC was one of the first computers to be designed with the stored-program concept.
  6. UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was the first commercial computer delivered to a business customer (the U.S. Census Bureau).
  7. Assembly Language was primarily used in the Second Generation of computers.
  8. The first commercially available microprocessor was the Intel 4004 in 1971.
  9. The introduction of the Personal Computer (PC) began in the Fourth Generation.
  10. FORTRAN (Formula Translation) was one of the first successful high-level programming languages, developed in the late 1950s.

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