4-BASIC

COMPUTER
PERIODS
LESSON 2
What are the 4 Basic Computer Periods?

Characterized by a principal technology used to solve the

input, processing, output and communication problems of the
time:
Pre-Mechanical Age
Mechanical Age
Electromechanical Age
Electronic Age
Pre-Mechanical Age (3000
B.C- 1450 A.D)
1. Writing and Alphabets-(Communication)
First humans communicated only through speaking and picture
drawings.
3000 B.C., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (what is today southern
Iraq) devised cuneiform

Around 2000 B.C., Phoenicians created symbols

The Greeks later adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added
vowels; the Romans gave the letters Latin names to create the
alphabet we use today.
"CAVE PAINTING"
from
Lascaux,
France, C.
15,000-10,000
BC
"PETROGLYPH"
Pre-Mechanical Age (3000
B.C- 1450 A.D)
2. Paper and Pens-(Input Technologies)
Sumerians' input technologywas a stylus that could scratch
marks in wet clay.

About 2600 B.C., the Egyptians write on the papyrus plant

Around 100 A.D.,the Chinese made paper from rags, on which
modern-day papermaking is based.
Pre-Mechanical Age (3000
B.C- 1450 A.D)
3. Books and Libraries-(Permanent Storage Devices)
Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept the earliest "books"
2.The Egyptians kept scrolls
3.Around 600 B.C., the Greeks began to fold sheets of papyrus
vertically into leaves and bind them together.
Pre-Mechanical Age (3000
B.C - 1450 A.D)
4. The First Numbering Systems
Egyptian system:
The numbers 1-9 as vertical lines, the number 10 as a U or circle,
the number 100 as a coiled rope, and the number 1,000 as a lotus
blossom.

The first numbering systems similar to those in use today were

invented between 100 and 200 A.D. by Hindus in
India who
created a nine-digit numbering system.

Around 875 A.D., the concept of zero was developed.

5. The First
Calculators:
"The Abacus"
One of the very first
information processors.
Mechanical Age
(1450 - 1840 A.D)
1. The First Information Explosion.
Johann Gutenberg (Mainz, Germany)
Invented the movable metal-type printing press in
1450.
The development of book indexes and the
widespread use of page numbers.
The first book to ever be printed was a Latin language
Bible, printed in Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg’s Bibles
were surprisingly beautiful, as each leaf Gutenberg
printed was later colorfully hand-illuminated.
Mechanical Age
(1450 - 1840 A.D)
2. The first general purpose "computers"
Actually, people who held the job title
"computer: one who works with numbers."

John Napier (1614)

allow multiplication and division to be reduced to
addition and subtraction. In 1617, he employ an
ancient numerical scheme as the Arabian lattice, lays
out a special version of the multiplication tables on a
set of four-sided wooded rods, allowing users to
multiply and divide numbers and perform square
roots and cube roots.
Mechanical Age
(1450 - 1840 A.D)
3. Slide Rules, the Pascaline and Leibniz's
Machine.

SLIDE RULE
Early 1600s, William Oughtred, an English mathematician and
Anglican clergyman, invented the slide rule Early example of an
analog computer.
Wilhelm Shickard (1623)
a professor at the University of
Tubingen, Germany, invents the
first mechanical calculator. It can
work with six digits and carries
digits across columns. It works,
but never makes it beyond the
prototype stage.
The Pascaline
Invented by Blaise Pascal
(1623-62), French mathematician.

One of the first mechanical

computing machines, around
1642.

made out of clock gears and

levers and could solve basic
mathematical problems like
addition and subtraction.
 The Pascaline
(front)

(rear
view)
Diagram of
interior
Leibniz's Machine
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
(1646-1716), German
mathematician and philosopher.
Invented a machine called the
stepped reckoner that could
multiply 5 digit and 12-digit
numbers yielding up to 16-digit
number.
 The Reckoner
(reconstruction
)
Mechanical Age
(1450 - 1840 A.D)
4. Babbage's Engines
Charles Babbage (1791-1871),
eccentric English
mathematician (Father of
Computer). He designed the
Analytical Engine and it was this
design that the basic framework
of the computers of today are
based on.
The Difference Engine
Working model created
in 1822
The "method
of differences"
Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom
Designed during the 1830s
Parts remarkably similar to modern-day computers.
The "store"
The "mill"
Punch cards.

Punch card idea picked up by Babbage from Joseph Marie

Jacquard's (1752-1834) loom.

Introduced in 1801.

Binary logic

Fixed program that would operate in real time.

Augusta Ada Byron
(1815-52)
The Countess of Lovelace
Also known as Ada Lovelace
and the first programmer
The programming language Ada
is
named in her honor.
Electromechanical Age
(1840 - 1940 A.D)
The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key
advance made during this period. Knowledge and information
could now be converted into electrical impulses.
Electromechanical Age
(1840 - 1940 A.D)
1. The Beginnings of Telecommunication
1. Voltaic Battery
Late 18th century.
2. Telegraph
Early 1800s.
3. Morse Code
Developed in 1835 by Samuel Morse
Dots and dashes.
Electromechanical Age
(1840 - 1940 A.D)
4. Telephone and Radio
Alexander Graham Bell 1876
5. Followed by the discovery that electrical waves travel

through space andcan produce an effectfar from the

point
at which they originated.
These twoevents led to the
invention of the radio
Guglielmo Marconi
1894
Voltaic Battery
Alessandro Volta
invented the voltaicpile which is considered to be the first sourceof
stored electricity in the 8th Century.
Telegraph
Samuel Morse
invented the first
telegraph in magnetic the year
1832 and
made an experiment version in 1815.
Telephone and Radio
The first successful bi-directional transmission of clear
speech by Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson was
made on 10 March 1876 when Bell spoke into his device, “Mr.
Watson, come here, I want to see you.” and Watson answered.
Radiotelegraph System
Guglielmo Marconi
best known for his development of a radiotelegraph system, which
served as the foundation for the establishment of numerous affiliated
companies worldwide.
1. Electromechanical Computing
1. Herman Hollerith and IBM.
Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) in 1880.
Census Machine
Early punch cards
Punch card workers
By
1890
The International Business
Machines Corporation (IBM).
• Its first logo

Inventions by IBM include the automated

teller machine (ATM), the floppy disk, the
hard disk drive, the magnetic stripe card, the
relational database, the SQL programming
language, the UPC barcode, and dynamic
random-access memory (DRAM). The IBM
mainframe, exemplified by the System/360,
was the dominant computing platform
during the 1960s and 1970s
2. Mark 1
Howard Aiken, a Ph.D. student at Harvard University
Built the Mark 1

Completed January 1942

8 feet tall, 51 feet long, 2 feet thick, weighed 5 tons, used
about 750,000 parts
Paper tape stored data and program instructions
Electronic Age
(1940 - present)
1. First Tries Early
1940s
Electronic
vacuum tubes.
Electronic Age
(1940 - present)
2. Eckert and Mauchly
The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer Using Vacuum Tubes: Electronic
Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)

1946.
Used vacuum tubes (not mechanical devices) to do its calculations.
Hence, first electronic computer.
Developers John Mauchly, a physicist, and J. Prosper Eckert, an electrical engineer The
Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania

Funded by the U.S. Army.

But it could not store its programs (its set of instructions)
The ENIAC
team (Feb 14,
1946).
Left to right:
J. Presper Eckert, Jr.;
John Grist Brainerd;
Sam Feltman;
Herman H.
Goldstine; John W.
Mauchly; Harold
Pender;
Major General G. L.
Barnes; Colonel Paul N.
Rear view
(note vacuum
tubes)
The First Stored-Program Computer(s)
Early 1940s, Mauchly and Eckert began to designthe EDVAC - the
Electronic Discreet Variable Computer.

John von Neumann's influential report in June 1945:

"The Report on the EDVAC"

British scientists used this report and outpaced the Americans.

Max Newman headed up the effort at Manchester University
Where the Manchester Mark I went into operation in June 1948--becoming the first
stored-program computer.
Maurice Wilkes, a British scientist at Cambridge University, completed the EDSAC
(Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) in 1949--two years before EDVAC was
finished.
Thus, EDSAC became the first stored-program computer in general use (i.e., not a
prototype).
The Manchester University Mark
I (prototype)
The First General-Purpose Computer for
Commercial Use: Universal Automatic Computer
(UNIVAC)
Late1940s, Eckert and Mauchly began the development of a computer
called UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)
Late 1940s, Eckert and Mauchly began the development of a
computer called UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)

Remington Rand.
First UNIVAC delivered to Census Bureau in 1951.
But, a machine called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) went into action

a few months before UNIVAC and became the world's first

commercial computer.
UNIVAC publicity
photo
The Four Generations of Digital
Computing
1. The First Generation (1951-1958)
a. Vacuum tubes as their main logic elements.
b. Punch cards to input and externally store data.
c. Rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data and programs
Programs written in
Machine language
Assembly language

Requires a compiler.
The Four Generations of Digital
Computing
2. The Second Generation (1959-1963)
a. Vacuum tubes replaced by transistors as main logic element.
AT&T's Bell Laboratories, in the 1940s
Crystalline mineral materials called semiconductors could be used in the design of a device called a
transistor

b. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices.
c. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two
directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal
storage technology.
High-level programming languages
E.g., FORTRAN and COBOL
The Four Generations of Digital
Computing
3. The Third Generation (1964-1979)
a. Individual transistors were replaced by integrated circuits. Magnetic
tape and disks completely replace punch cards as external storage
devices. Magnetic core internal memories began to give way to a new
form, metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) memory, which, like integrated
circuits, used silicon-backed chips.

Operating systems
Advanced programming languages like BASIC developed.
Which is where Bill Gates and Microsoft got their start in 1975
The Four Generations of Digital
Computing
4. The Fourth Generation (1979- Present)
a. Large-scale and very large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs
andcontrol
VLSICs) Microprocessors that contained memory, logic, and
circuits (an entire CPU = Central Processing Unit) on a single chip.
Which allowed for home-use personal computers or PCs, like the Apple
(II and Mac) and IBM PC.

Apple II released to public in 1977, by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs.

Initially sold for $1,195 (without a monitor); had 16k RAM.
First Apple Mac released in 1984.

IBM PC introduced in 1981.

Debuts with MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System)
The Four Generations of Digital
Computing
4. The Fourth Generation (1979- Present)
b. Fourth generation language software products
E.g., Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, Microsoft Word, and
many
others.

Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) for PCs arrive in early 1980s

 MS Windows debuts in 1983, but
is quite a clunker. Windows
wouldn't
take off until version 3 was released
in 1990

Apple's GUI (on the first Mac) debuts

in 1984
 END OF
LESSON 2