History of Computer

The earliest device that qualities as s digital computer is the abacus also known as sabosan this devices permits the users to represents number by the position of beads on a rack.

Another manual calculating devices was john nophier bone.

Charles Babbage a nineteenth century professor at Cambridge University is considered to be the father of modern digital computer.

Babbage designed a different engine in the year 1882 which could produce reliable tables. In 1842 Babbage comes out with his new idea of analytical engine that was intended to be completely automatic. It was capable of performing the basic arithmetic function for any mathematical problems and it was to do so at an average speed of 60 additions per minutes.

It was very complex in design and huge in size. It used over 3000 electricity actuated switches to control its operation and was capable of performing was approximately 50 feet long and 8 feet high. It was five basic arithmetic operation additions, subtraction, multiplication, division and table reference.

It was basically an electro mechanical device since both mechanical and electronic components were used in its design.

The ENIAC (1943-46)

The electronic numerical integrator and calculator (ENIAC) was the first all electronic computer. It was constructed at the more school of engineering of university of Pennsylvania; USA by a design team led b professor j. prospers Eckert and john mavchly.

It took up the wall space in a 20*40 square feet room and uses 18,000 vacuum tubes.

The EDVAC (1946-52)

The electronic discrete variable automatic computer (EDVAC) was designed on stored program concept. Von Neumann has also got a share of the credit for introducing the idea of the credit for introducing the idea of storing both instruction and data in the binary from (a system that uses only two digits-0 & 1 to represent all characters) instead of the decimal numbers or human readable words.

The EDSAC (1947-49)

Almost simultaneously with EDVAC of USA the British developed the electronic delay storage automatic calculator (EDSAC). The machine executed its first program in may1949. In this machine, addition operation was accomplished in 1500 microseconds, and multiplication operation in 4000 microseconds. The machine was developing by a group of scientist headed by professor murices Wilkes at the Cambridge university mathematical laboratory.

The UNIVAC (1951)

The universal automatic computer (UNIVAC) was the first digital computer which was not one of a kind many UVIVAC machines were produced the first of which was installed in the census bureau in 1951 and was used continuously for 10 years. The first business use of a computer, a UNIVAC I was by general Electric Corporation in 1954.