Brief History of Computer

Brief History of Computer

• Abacus was used for counting
• Napier discovered Logarithms in 1614
• Robert Bissaker invented the slide rule in 1622
• Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical digital calculator in 1642
• Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented the first calculator for multiplication in 1671
• Charles Babbage (U. Cambridge) invents:
  • Difference Engine in 1812
  • Analytical Engine in 1833
• Keyboard machines, which originated in the United States around 1880
• Hollerith invented the first electro-mechanical punched card data processing machine in 1890
• Vacuum tube/triode invented by De Forest in 1905
• The relay-based IBM 601 reached 1 MPS in 1935
• Atanasoff & Berry invented ABC, the first electronic digital computer, in 1939
• Zuse invented Z3, the first programmable computer, in 1941
• Harvard Mark I (Aiken) and Colossus built at 'Station X' - Bletchley Park were developed in 1943
• Eckert and Mauchly (UPenn) invented ENIAC in 1945
• von Neumann drafted “EDVAC” in 1945
• “Point contact” transistor was invented by Shockley, Bardeen & Brattain in 1947
• EDSAC, the world’s first stored-program computer, was developed by Wilkes & Wheeler in 1949
• TRADIC, the first electronic computer without vacuum tubes, was created by Bell Labs in 1954
• First silicon (junction) transistor was developed in 1954 by TI
• First integrated circuit was created by Kilby & Noyce (TI) in 1959
• IBM System/360, based on integrated circuits, was introduced in 1964
• Intel 4004, the first micro-processor, was developed by Ted Hoff in 1971
• Intel 8086/8088, used in IBM PC, was introduced in 1978
• First VLSI chip (> 100,000 transistors) was created in 1980

Some Popular Early Computers

• The Mark I Computer (1937-44)
• The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1939-42)
• The ENIAC (1943-46)
• The EDVAC (1946-52)
• The EDSAC (1947-49)
• Manchester Mark I (1948)
• The UNIVAC I (1951)