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The Abacus
The abacus was an early aid for mathematical computations. Its only value is that it aids the memory of the human performing the calculation. A skilled abacus operator can work on addition and subtraction problems at the speed of a person equipped with a hand calculator (multiplication and division are slower). The abacus is often wrongly attributed to China. In fact, the oldest surviving abacus was used in 300 B.C. by the Babylonians. -
Oct 9, 1440
First Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg completes his development of the Gutenberg press, the first printing press. -
Napier's Bones
A Scotsman named John Napier invented logarithms, which are a technology that allows multiplication to be performed via addition. The magic ingredient is the logarithm of each operand, which was originally obtained from a printed table. But Napier also invented an alternative to tables, where the logarithm values were carved on ivory sticks which are now called Napier's Bones. -
A slide rule
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Pascaline
In 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid for his father who was a tax collector. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven one-function calculator (it could only add) but couldn't sell many because of their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate (at that time it was not possible to fabricate gears with the required precision). Up until the present age when car dashboards went digital, the odometer portion of a car's speedometer used the very same mechan -
Wilhelm Gottfried Liebniz and The Stepped Reckoner
German inventor Gottfried Liebniz perfected the Liebniz Calculator. Liebniz entered a university at fifteen years of age and received his bachelor's degree at seventeen. This machine is sometimes called The Stepped Reckoner. leibnitz_rechner.jpgThe Liebniz was also a calculating machine, but much superior to that of the Pascaline. It could do more than just add and subtract. The Liebniz Calculator could also multiply, divide, and find square roots of numbers. It too was mechanical and worked by -
Jacquard's loom
Jacquard invented the Jacquard loom. It was a weaving machine that was controlled by punched cards. While the loom was being pumped, cards with holes in them were attached together in a pattern through which strings of thread were automatically fed. These cards would feed the right pieces of thread into the loom to make a beautiful cloth. -
The Punched Card
the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a power loom that could base its weave (and hence the design on the fabric) upon a pattern automatically read from punched wooden cards, held together in a long row by rope. Descendents of these punched cards have been in use ever since (remember the "hanging chad" from the Florida presidential ballots of the year 2000?). -
Difference Engine
English mathematician by the name charles Babbage, designed a computing machine called the Difference Engine. This machine was to be used in the calculating and printing of simple math tables. -
The Analytical Engine
He designed a second computing machine called the Analytical Engine. This machine was to be used in calculating complicated problems by following a set of instructions. The Analytical Engine was a mechanical computer that can solve any mathematical problem. It uses punch-cards similar to those used by the Jacquard loom and can perform simple conditional operations. -
The First Generation: (The Vacuum Tube Years)
The first generation computers were huge, slow, expensive, and often undependable. In 1946 two Americans, Presper Eckert, and John Mauchly built the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) electronic computer which used vacuum tubes instead of the mechanical switches of the Mark I. The ENIAC used thousands of vacuum tubes, which took up a lot of space and gave off a great deal of heat just like light bulbs do. -
Technology Advances
Two devices would be invented which would improve the computer field and cause the beginning of the computer revolution. The first of these two devices was the transistor. Invented in 1947 by William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain of Bell Labs, the transistor was fated to oust the days of vacuum tubes in computers, radios, and other electronics. -
The Second Generation: (The Era of the Transistor)
The transistor computer did not last as long as the vacuum tube computer lasted, but it was no less important in the advancement of computer technology. In 1947 three scientists, John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain working at AT&T's Bell Labs invented what would replace the vacuum tube forever. This invention was the transistor which functions like a vacuum tube in that it can be used to relay and switch electronic signals. -
Creation of Microsoft
Two young hackers were intrigued by the Altair, having seen the article in Popular Electronics. They decided on their own that the Altair needed software and took it upon themselves to contact MITS owner Ed Roberts and offer to provide him with a BASIC which would run on the Altair. BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) had originally been developed in 1963 by Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny, members of the Dartmouth mathematics department. -
The Third Generation: (Integrated Circuits-Miniaturizing the Computer)
Transistors were a tremendous breakthrough in advancing the computer. However, no one could predict that thousands even now millions of transistors (circuits) could be compacted in such a small space. The integrated circuit, or as it is sometimes referred to as semiconductor chip, packs a huge number of transistors onto a single wafer of silicon. Robert Noyce of Fairchild Corporation and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments independently discovered the amazing attributes of integrated circuits. -
The Altair
Intel released the first microprocessor. The microprocessor was a specialized integrated circuit which was able to process four bits of data at a time. The chip included its own arithmetic logic unit, but a sizable portion of the chip was taken up by the control circuits for organizing the work, which left less room for the data-handling circuitry. Thousands of hackers could now aspire to own their own personal computer. Computers up to this point had been strictly the legion of the military. -
The Fourth Generation: (The Microprocessor)
This generation can be characterized by both the jump to monolithic integrated circuits (millions of transistors put onto one integrated circuit chip) and the invention of the microprocessor (a single chip that could do all the processing of a full-scale computer). By putting millions of transistors onto one single chip more calculation and faster speeds could be reached by computers. The smaller the distance the greater the speed of computers. -
The Fifth Generation: Present & Beyond (Artificial Intelligence)
Defining the fifth generation of computers is somewhat difficult because the field is in its infancy. The most famous example of a fifth generation computer is the fictional HAL9000 from Arthur C. Clarke's novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL performed all of the functions currently envisioned for real-life fifth generation computers. With artificial intelligence, HAL could reason well enough to hold conversations with its human operators, use visual input, and learn from its own experiences.
