WRITE ON THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER
The computer as a device, in recent times has played a great role, bringing it to
high relevance in the areas of storage and dissemination of information the
computer functions with ease, accuracy and readiness.
With the world becoming a global village through the use of computer hence
there is great need for all to be acclaimed with the computer by being literate to
its operations.
A computer is an electronic device used to store, retrieve and manipulate data.
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF COMPUTER
The history of computer can be traced back to 1543 – 1678 during the season of
scientific revolution.
The calculating machine invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642 and Gottfried Leibniz
marked the revolution of the application mechine in industry.
The progressed to the season of industrialization in the Great Britain (1760 –
1830) and the western world.
The computer was never created for the purpose of entertainment. In 1880, the
United State had grown rapidly in population, and needed a faster way of getting
the census results, giving rise to punch card based computers that took up entire
rooms.
The brief history of computing is a record of how computers evolved from their
humble beginnings to the mechanism of today. In 1623 Withelm Schickard
designed and constructed the first working mechanical calculator which was
digitalized in 1801.
In the year 1673 by Gottfried Leibniz and then called “stepped Reckoner”. In 1801
joseph Marie Jacquard invent anhoom that users punched wooden cards to
automatically weave fabric designs. All of these events from people like Thomas
de Colmar 1820, Charles Babbage 1822 (Father of Computers).
Ada lovelace 1843, etc. until the early 2000 till date which witnessed high level
tech-computer, with inventions from companies such as Applier, Google and the
rest.
Generally speaking, computer can be classified into five generations, each of
these generations lasted for a certain period of time and each gave us either a
new and improved computer or an improvement to the existing computer.
The first generation of computer (1937 – 1946).
In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr. John V. Atanasoff and
Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff – Berry Computer and in 1943. Another
computer was built.
CHARACTERISTICS
i. Sizes of these computers where as large as the sizes of a room.
ii. Possession of vacuum tubes to perform calculation.
iii. Uses capacitors to store binary data and information.
EXAMPLES
1. Mark I developed by Aiken in 1944.
2. Electronic numerical integrator and calculator.
SECOND GENERATION
SECOND GENERATION OF COMPUTER (1947 – 1912)
During this era, there was a little bit of improvement recorded, therefore the
second generation of computer used transistors instead of vacuum tubes which
were more reliable. The first computer for commercial use was introduced in
1951 alongside seven hundred (700) others, with more improvement.
CHARACTERISTICS
1. The computer were still large but smaller than the first computers.
2. They use transistors in place of vacuum tube.
3. They were produced at a reduced cost compared to the first generation.
EXAMPLE
1. Leprechaun IBM built buy Bell Laboratories in 1947.
2. Transis produced by Philco, G.E. and R.C.A .
THE THIRD GENERATION OF COMPUTER (1963 – 1975)
The invention of the integrated circuit brought the third generation of computers
making the computer smaller, more powerful and reliable, being able to run
different programs at a time.
1. They used large – scale integrated circuit, which were used for both data
processing and storage.
2. Computers were miniaturized, becoming smaller in size compared to the
previous generation.
3. The keyboard and mouse were used for input while the monitor was used
as an output device.
Examples
1. Burroughs 6700, mini computers
2. Honeywell 200
3. IBM system 360
FOURTH GENERATION OF COMPUTER
At this era there was high level of technological development the size of
computer was divided into personal computers PC. This was the time micro-
processor was created by intel.
CHARACTERISTICS
1. Passion of micro-processor which performs all the task a computer system
in use today.
2. The size and cost of the computers were highly reduced.
3. Increase in speed of computer.
Example
1. IBM system 3090
2. ILLACIV
3. Cray 2x MP.
THE FIFTH GENERATION OF COMPUTERS
The fifth generation of computer devices, which are based artificial intelligence
are still in development with application such as voice recording recognition,
facial face detector, etc.
EXAMPLE
1. Consist of extremely large scale integration
2. Parallel processing
3. Possession of high speed logic and memory chip.
4. Ability for computer to mimic human intelligence such as voice recognition,
facial face detector, etc.
Example
1. Super computers
2. Robots
3. Facial face detector.
CONCLUSION
The earliest foundations of what would become computer science, predate the
invention of the modern digital computer. Machines for calculating fixed
numerical task such as abacus have existed, Charles Babbage, sometimes,
referred to as the “Father of computing”. Ada Lovelace is often credited with
publishing the first algorithm intended for processing on a computer. Since
antiquity, aiding in computations such as multiplication and division.
Algorithms for performing computations have existed since antiquity, even before
the development of sophisticated computing equipment.
In 1980 Microsoft Disk operating system (MS-Dos) was born and in 1981 IBM
introduced the personal computer (PC) for home and office use. Three years later
Apple gave us the Macintosh computer with its icon driven interface and the 90s
gave is Windows operating system. As a result of the various improvements to the
development of the computer we have seen the computer being used in all areas
of life. It is a very useful tool that will continue to experience new development as
time passes.
REFERENCES
Charles Babbage “Who was Charles?” Obi/edu. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
Ada Lovelace www.computerHistory.org. Retrieved December 28, 2016.
