(History of the Computer)
The history of information communication technology can be divided into four main eras.
- Pre mechanical era (before 1450)
- Mechanical era (1450 – 1840)
- Electromechanical era (1840 – 1940)
- Electronic era (1940 – present)
v In the beginning, man used his fingers and toes to perform simple computations such as addition and subtraction.
v 3000 BC – The first man-made computing device is the “Abacus”. In the Abacus, small beads are arranged on a series of vertical rods in a manner that by manipulating them, it is possible with some skill and practice, to make rapid calculations.
v John Napier (1550-1617), a Scottish mathematician, invented the Napier’s Bones – an aid to multiplication. A set of bones consisted of nine (9) rods, one for each digit 1 through 9. A rod is essentially one column of a multiplication table.
v In 1642, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, invented an adding machine. The machine has adopted partly the principles of the abacus but did away with the use of the hand to move the beads or counters. Instead, Pascal used wheels to move counters.
v In 1674, Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibnitz made improvements on Pascal’s machine. With Leibnitz’s improvements, it was possible for the machine to divide and multiply as easily as it could add and subtract.
v Charles Babbage made ANALYTICAL ENGINE (In 1833) and DIFFERENTIAL ENGINE (In 1883)
v 1840 – Ada, the first programmer suggested binary data storage rather than decimal.
v 1880 – Joseph Jacquard introduced punch card concept
v 1890 – Dr.Herman Hollerith developed the punched card that would contain data coded in form of punched holes.
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Generation of the computers