THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

The History of Computers



The History of Computers

History of computers

History of computer is actually a history of man's zeal for achieving the utmost sophistication in all branches of science and technology. It is the history of counting, calculation, computing and data processing. Man has been computing throughout history, probably since he first learnt how to count. He always needed to count and use some system of numbering to represent data. Not only have we evolved to a much more intelligent civilization but into one that knows how to make the technology work for it (American Association for Artificial Intelligence).

Our forefathers might never have visualized a future where people will no longer need to carry huge mechanical weights and pulleys to carry shipments or manually count all the fish tanks in a shipyard every time one is missing. Computers have made our lives not only easier but much more efficient and effective. In a wider scope, a computer can be any device that converts raw data into meaningful information. The industry wide recognized definition of a computer is: Electronic equipment designed to automatically accept and store input data, process it, and produce output results under the direction of a detailed step-by-step stored program of instructions (Owens, 63).

Computer Generations

Each generation helped to further advance computer technology. As a result of the miniaturization, speed, power, and memory of computers, their popularity has proportionally increased.

First Generation (1946 - 1959)

Vacuum tubes of humongous size were used as internal computer components. Due to the amount of heat they produced, burnout and temperature regulations were problems to be dealt with everyday. Machine language was introduced which worked on binary (0,1) strings and was a very difficult language to master. Magnetic tapes came into existence in 1957 and were quickly adopted by many businesses worldwide. The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer), LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) and IBM 650-701 made the list in this generation.

Second Generation (1959 - 1965)

Transistors, an invention that is still debated to have changed the course of computing forever, came into existence. Even the early versions were 1/100th of a size of a typical vacuum tube and they needed to warm-up time and were much more efficient as well as reliable then previous technologies. Assembly language and higher-lever languages were developed which replaced the machine language.

The first language to receive wide spread acceptance was FORTRAN (Formula Translator) for mathematical and then COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) for business programming users. In 1962, almost at the end of this generation, the first removable disk was marketed which did not replace magnetic tape systems but complemented it due to its faster access time. UNIVAC - II (Universal Automatic Computer), IBM-1400, IBM-1600 and NCR-2000 were amongst the credits of this generation.

Third Generation (1965 - 1970)

Beginning in 1965, the integrated circuits (I.C) began to replace the transistors. They formed a complete electronic circuit on a small chip of silicon and was much more smaller as ...