Scribd
Upload
8 views

I - Lesson 2

Uploaded by

6p8gm2p58v
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
8 views

I - Lesson 2

Uploaded by

6p8gm2p58v
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 17

TYPES AND THE

HISTORY OF
COMPUTERS
Muhamed Shej
TYPES OF COMPUTERS

Mainframe Computers

A mainframe computer is a big, powerful, and expensive computer. Many


people can use the power of a mainframe computer at the same time, using
either a Personal Computer (PC) or a Dumb Terminal. A PC performs a lot
of processing itself. A dumb terminal uses the mainframe computer to do all
the processing and just shows the results on a screen. Large organizations,
for example, banks and insurance companies, use mainframe computers.
.

Minicomputers

Like mainframe computers, minicomputers are multi-user computers. They


are very powerful and expensive. Mainframes and minicomputers are used
for very similar purposes. Middle-sized companies use minicomputers.

As microcomputers developed in 1970s and 1980s, minicomputers filled


the mid-range area between low powered single-user microcomputers and
high capacity multi-user mainframes. Since microcomputers have become
more powerful and the PC networks emerged in 1980s and 1990s, the
minicomputers role has been filled by microcomputers.
.

Supercomputers

A supercomputer is a mainframe computer that is incredibly powerful and


has
a very large capacity for processing data. Supercomputers are often used
by the military services. They are also used for such research as weather
forecasting, in which a huge amount of data must be processed rapidly.

Cray-2 was the world’s fastest computer in the 1980s. It was used by
U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy for nuclear weapons research,
by NASA’s Ames Research Center and by universities and corporations
worldwide for different purposes.
.

IBM Sequoia, IBM Roadrunner, IBM Blue Gene, and NEC Earth
Simulator
are the world’s fastest computers.

The primary operating system for supercomputers is Linux. More


than half of the top 500 supercomputers used Linux as of June
2021.
.

Microcomputers

Microcomputers are usually used only by one person at a time. An


IBM
PC and Apple Macintosh are two kinds of microcomputers. There are
desktop, laptop, palmtop, tabletop, pocket, tablet, and netbook
models of
microcomputers.
Homework!
THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

The electronic computer industry has developed faster than any


other
industry in history.

The first electronic computer was called the ENIAC (Electronic


Numerical Integrator And Calculator). It was built at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1943, and it was used for military
calculations, for weather forecasting, and for atomic energy
calculations. It weighed 30 tons and filled a big room. At 11:45
PM on October 2, 1955, ENIAC was shut down.
.

Dr. John Von Neumann invented a technology for program


storage at the University of Princeton in 1945. This technology
allowed a computer to store a program in memory. People could
change the program for different purposes. Dr. John Von
Neumann’s computer made it possible to develop the computers
we use today.

John von Neumann (1903 – 1957) was a Hungarian American


mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of
fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum
mechanics, continuous geometry, game theory, computer
science, numerical analysis, and statistics.
The Main Periods in the History of
Computers
1. Vacuum Tubes (1930–1958)
The first computers used vacuum tubes to make calculations. A
vacuum tube is a device used to amplify, switch, modify, or
create an electrical signal by controlling the movement of
electrons in a low-pressure space. It looks and behaves like a
light bulb. It generates a lot of heat and has a tendency to burn
out. The ENIAC was a vacuum tube computer. It weighed over
thirty tons and consumed 200 kilowatts of electrical power. It had
around 18,000 vacuum tubes that constantly burned out.
.

2. Transistors (1959)

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes because they were smaller,


faster, and more reliable and used less energy. The transistor is
considered by many to be the greatest invention of the twentieth
century. It is the key active component in practically all modern
electronics. Invitation of the transistor made it possible to
produce integrated circuits, make personal computers, and fly
spacecrafts and satellites.
.

3. Integrated Circuits (1965)

Integrated circuits (microchips) use


semiconductors to make complex circuits for
data processing. Their invention was a big
development for the computer industry. Big
boards with transistors that took up a lot of
space were replaced with small boards that
reduced the size of computers and made
them more reliable and less expensive.
.

4. Microprocessors (1971)

A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a


central
processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit. The
computer company Intel introduced its first microprocessor in
1971. It was a 4-bit processor and was used for electronic
calculators. Microprocessors allow computers to perform more
accurate operations in less time.
A microprocessor may contain millions of transistors. An AMD
dual-core Athlon Processor has 154- 233 millions transistors, and
an Intel Pentium D has 230 million transistors.
.

5. Personal Computer (1981)

The computer company IBM introduced its first personal


computer (PC), called the Datamaster, in 1981. PCs are made for
individual use, and are intended to be operated directly by end
users, with no intervening computer operator.
Important Inventions in the History
of Computers
► 3000 BC: People began to use an abacus for calculations.
► 1642: Blaise Pascal made a mechanical calculator (for addition
and subtraction) for his father to calculate taxes.
► 1694: Wilhelm Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) successfully
developed a calculator. It was designed in 1673 but it was not
completed until 1694. The calculator could add, subtract,
multiply, and divide.
► 1890: Hermann Hollerith designed a computer that used
punched cards. A punched card is a piece of stiff paper that
contains digital information represented by the presence or
absence of holes in predefined positions.

You might also like