History of Computer - Computer Basic Tutorial

ABACUS:

This was the 1st mechanical device developed in 3500 B.C. A modern Abacus consist of a wooden frame with beads on parallel wires and crossbar oriented, perpendicular to the wires that divides the beads into two groups. Each column - that is each wire - represents one place in the decimal system. By moving appropriate beads one  could represent various numbers. It perform simple addition and subtraction. The Abacus is still used in china and japan.

Abacus

PASCAL'S ADDING MACHINE: 

This was introduced by "Blaise Pascal" in 1942 which operated by dialing wheels. It could add and subtract automatically carrying and borrowing digits from column to column. In 17th century German mathematician "Gottfried Leibniz" designed a special gearing system to enable multiplication on Pascal's Adding Machine.

JACQUARD CARD:

"Joseph Marie Jacquard" developed an automatic weaving system in 1801 for weaving pattern into fibers using cards with punched holes. This was the beginning of the concept of punch cards. This card is known as "Jacquard's Card". Dr. Herman Hollerith borrowed the concept from Jacquard to built a machine known as "CENSUS MACHINE" which was first used to tabulate census data in 1890. He later formed the tabulating machine company to sell his invention and this company became world's largest computer manufacturing company IMB (International Business Machine Corporation).

ANALYTICAL ENGINE:

Analytical Engine

In 1883, an English mathematician "Charles Babbage" developed the concept of analytical engine. This machine could perform arithmetic operation for any mathematical problem on data read in form punched card. So "Charles Babbage" called the father of computer.

MARK 1:

In 1943, Harvard professor "Howard H. Eiken" built an automatic calculating machine which was known as Mark 1 digital Computer. It's internal operations were automatically controlled.

ENIAC:

Shortly after Mark 1 was introduced, two electrical engineers, "John W. Mauchly and J. Eckert" of Pennsylvania University, developed the first electronic Computer to compute trajectory table for the U.S. Army it was called "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator". It has the capacity to do 300 multiplications per second making it 300 times faster than any other machine of the era.

UNIVAC:

The world's first commercial data processing machine was UNIVAC (Universla Automatic Computer) which was installed at U.S. Bureau of census in 1951.