What is the History of Computer ?

What is the History of Computer?

Computer:- A computer is an electronic machine, operating under the control of instructions stored in its own memory that can accept data (input), manipulate the data according to specified rules (progress), produce results (output), and store the results for future use.

Technically, a computer is a programmable machine. This means it can executes a list of programmed instructions and respond to new instructions that it is given.

History of Computer 

Charles Babbage's Machine

The working principles of today's computers were provided by an English Mathematician Charles Babbage around 1833's invented a machine called the "Analytical Engine". A machine which could calculate and print table of function using limited techniques.

The Analytical Engine had four parts. A mill, which was the section which did the calculations, essentially the CPU; the store, were the information was kept recorded, essentially the memory; the reader, which would allow data to be entered using puched cards, essentially the keyboard, and the printer.

Hence, Charles Babbage is considered as the "Father Of the Computer"

The generation of computers are characterized by a major technological development that fundamentally changed the way computer operate, resulting in increasingly smaller, cheaper, more powerful and more efficient and reliable devices. The various generations of computer are listed below.

First generation (1946-1959) :- In 1946 the digital computer using electronic valves (vaccum tubes) are known as first generation computers. The first 'computer' to use electronic valves i.e. vaccum tubes. The high cost of vaccum tubes prevented their use for main memory. They stored information in the form of propagating sound waves.

The vaccum tube consumes a lot of power. These computers were large in size and writing programs on them was difficult. Some of the computers of this generation were:

Mark I :- The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), called Mark I by Harvard University, was an electro-mechanic computer. Mark I is the first machine to successfully perform a long services of arithmatic and logical operation. Mark I is the First Generation Computer.

ENIAC :- It was the first electronic computer built in 1946 at University of Pennsylvania, USA by John Eckert and John Mouchy. It was named Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). The ENIAC was 30-50 feet long, weighted 30 tons, contained 18,000 vaccum tubes, 70,000 resisters, 10,000 capacitors and required 150,000 watts of electricity. Today computer is many times as powerful as ENIAC, still size is very small.

EDVAC :- It stands for Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer and was developed in 1950. The concept of storing data and instruction inside the computer was introduced here. This allowed much faster operation since the computer had rapid access to both data and instructions. The other advantages of storing instruction was that computer could do logical decision iternally. The EDVAC  was a binary serial computer with automatic additon, substractio, multiplication, programmed division and automatic checking with an ultrasonic serial memory.

EDSAC :- It stands for Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer and was developed by M.V. Wilkes at Cambridge University in 1949. The EDSAC is the first stored-program computer. The EDSAC  performed computations in the three millisecond range. It performe arithmatic and logical operations without hunman intervention. The key to the success was in the stored instructions which it depended upon solely for its operation.

UNIAC-1 :- It stands for Universal Automatic Computer and it was the First commercial computer developed by United States in 1951. The machine was 25 feet by 50 feet in length, contained 5,600 tubes, 18,000 crystal diodes, and 300 relays. It utillized serial circuitry, 2.25 MHz bit rate, and had an internal storage capacity 1,000 words or 12,000 characters.

The UNIAC was used for general purpose computing with large amount of input and output. The UNIAC was also the first to come equipped with a magnetic tape unit and was first computer to use buffer memory.