4- EVOLUTION OF COMPUTER

Humans have been trying to develop machines for a long time that can assist them with performing calculations and processing data. As populations grew and societies became more sophisticated over time, the need to process data increased dramatically. 

 

Hundreds of scientists and mathematicians spent their valuable time and money making instruments to get answer to difficult questions. The period of computer evolution, respected people and their instruments are given below:

Abacus:

The abacus is the most ancient and first calculating device known. It is the most primitive form of calculating device, invented somewhere between 300 and 500 BC. Abacus has traveled a long way and had transitions as it traveled through different countries. The Suanpan, one of the modern age Chinese abacus had 2/5 decks, but due to its complexity was replaced by Soroban abacus, a Japanese abacus, that was modified by a famous mathematician Seki Kowa. 

 

 

An abacus consists of a wooden frame, rods, and beads. Each rod represents a different place value—ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on. Each bead represents a number, usually 1 or 5, and can be moved along the rods. Addition and subtraction can easily be performed by moving beads along the wires of the abacus.

 

John Napier's Bone:

John Napier, the inventor of logarithms, also invented this aid to calculation known as 'Napier's Bones' in 1617. The 'bones' consist of a set of rectangular rods, each marked with a counting number at the top, and the multiples of that number down their lengths.

 

 

Set of Napier's bones in boxwood, in a boxwood case. John Napier (1550-1617), discoverer of logarithms, also created this popular calculating tool known as Napier's cylindrical 'rods' or 'bones'. Napier's bones reduced multiplication to a sequence of simple additions and could also be used for division and to calculate square roots.  

 
 

Blaize Pascal's Pascaline:

Blaize Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1645 is called Pascaline. This calculating machine could add and subtract two numbers directly and multiply and divide by repetition. The same system works in the speedometer available in cars and scooters even today.

 

 

Samuel Morland's Calculating machine:

The polymath Samuel Morland, was a notable English academic, diplomat, spy, inventor and mathematician of the 17th century, credited with early developments in relation to computing, hydraulics and steam power. He is an important person for this site, because in 1660s he devised a total of three calculating machines—one for trigonometry (1663), one for addition and subtraction (1666) and one for multiplication and division (1662). Morland's calculating machines became rather popular and London instrument-makers were still selling Morland's calculators as late as 1710.

Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz's Reckoner Machine:

In 1671 the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz designed a calculating machine called the Step Reckoner. (It was first built in 1673.) The Step Reckoner expanded on Pascal's ideas and did multiplication by repeated addition and shifting.

 

Although the stepped reckoner employed the decimal number system (each drum had 10 flutes), Leibniz was the first to advocate use of the binary number system which is fundamental to the operation of modern computers. Leibniz is considered one of the greatest of the philosophers but he died poor and alone. 

 

Joseph Marie Jacquard's Jacquard Loom:

The Jacquard system was developed in 1804–05 by Joseph Marie Jacquard of France, but it soon spread elsewhere. His system improved on the punched-card technology of Jacquard Loom (1745). Jacquard’s loom utilized interchangeable Punch card that controlled the weaving of the cloth so that any desired pattern could be obtained automatically.

 

 The Jacquard Loom is important to computer history because it is the first machine to use interchangeable punch cards to instruct a machine to perform automated tasks. Having a machine that could perform various tasks is similar to today's computer program that can be programmed to perform different tasks. 

Charles Babbage's Difference & Analytical Engine:

Charles Babbage, English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic Digital Computer. In 1812 Babbage helped found the Analytical Society, whose object was to introduce developments from the European continent into English Mathematics. The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small calculator that could perform certain mathematical computations to eight decimals. Then in 1823 he obtained government support for the design of a projected machine, the Difference Engine, with a 20-decimal capacity.

 

 

During the mid-1830s Babbage developed plans for the Analytical Engine, the forerunner of the modern Digital Computer. In that device he envisioned the capability of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer.

Charles Babbage is considered the “father of the computer” and is given credit for devising the first ever mechanical computer. His design served as the blue print for other, more complex machines.

 

 

Herman Hollerith's Census Tabulator:

In 1896, Herman Hollerith built a machine powered by electricity, which was called Census Tabulator. In the same year, the Hollerith established a company named 'Tabulating Machine Company' for making punch card. In 1911 TMC merged with two other companies (Computing Scale Company of America and International Time Recording Company) to become the Calculating-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR). It would merge with several other firms in 1924 and was renamed International Business Machine (IBM).

 

 

Dr. Howard Hathaway Aiken's Mark-I:

Howard Aiken, in full Howard Hathaway Aiken, mathematician who invented the Harvard Mark-1 in 1944, forerunner of the modern Electronic Digital Computer. It was the first Electric Mechanical Computer.

The IBM ASCC(Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator) named the Harvard Mark I, was the first of a series of four computers associated with Howard Aiken. Mark I and Mark II were electromagnetic, using relays, but Mark III and Mark IV had a variety of electronic components, including vacuum tubes and solid-state transistors.

 

 

John Vincent Atanasoff's ABC: 

John Vincent Atanasoff hired a particularly bright electrical engineering student, Cliford E. Berry, to help him accomplish his goal. With his background in electronics and mechanical construction skills, the brilliant and inventive Berry was the ideal partner for Atanasoff. They worked at developing and improving the ABC or Atanasoff-Berry Computer, as it was later named, from 1939 until 1945. It was the first Electronic Digital Computer.

 

The final product was the size of a desk, weighed 700 pounds, had over 300 vacuum tubes, and contained a mile of wire. It could calculate about one operation every 15 seconds.  

 

When World War II interrupted work on the ABC, Atanasoff and Berry moved on to other jobs and projects. J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, developers of the ENIAC machine at the University of Pennsylvania, were the first to patent an electronic digital computer. 

 

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