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ABACUS AND CALCULATORS
It is a measure of the brilliance of the abacus, invented in the Middle East circa 500 BC, that it remained the fastest form of calculator until the middle of the 17th century. Then, in 1642, aged only 18, French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623–1666) invented the first practical mechanical calculator, the Pascaline, to help his tax-collector father do his sums. -
Pascal's calculator
Blaise Pascal along with Wilhelm Schickard was one of two inventors of the mechanical calculator in the early 17th century. Pascal designed the machine in 1642. He was spurred to it when participating in the burden of arithmetical labor involved in his father's official work as supervisor of taxes at Rouen. First called the Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline, his invention was primarily intended as an adding machine which could add and subtract two numbers directly -
Charles Babbage
Considered ‘the father of computers’.
Conceived an analytical engine which could be programmed with punched cards to carry out calculations.
Different from its predecessors (sequential, branching and looping).
Almost all computers in use today follow this basic idea.
The first machine was built by the London Science Museum. -
Konrad Zuse
The First Electronic Computers
Konrad Zuse develops the first electronic computer in Germany Z3 in 1941.
Z3 was the first working programmable and fully automatic digital computer. -
The First Electronic Computers
Z3 had 2000 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz.
Colossus: computer to break encrypted German codes for the war (1943-1945). Vacuum tubes.
Americans built the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer, or ENIAC (1943-1945) Vacuum tubes.
Vacuum tubes spend a lot of energy -
Semiconductor Transistor
Invented in 1926
Only in 1947 was it developed into a solid-state, reliable transistor for the use in computers.
Computers are smaller and cooler
Welcome to second generation of computers
All current electronic devices use transistors
IBM was the first company to introduce one
650 the first-mass produced computer in 1954 -
Integrated circuit
By 1958 it became posible to combine several components, transistors among others, circuitry connecting them on a single piece of silicon.
Another name for a chip, an integrated circuit (IC) is a small electronic device made out of a semiconductor material. The first integrated circuit was developed in the 1950s by Jack Kilby of Texas Instrumentsand Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor. -
The concept of current computer
A computer is an electronic machine that accepts information, stores it, processes it according to the instructions provided by a user and then returns the result.
