Evolution of

Computers
-Rick Graziani

Origins of Computing Machines

Early computing devices
Abacus: positions of beads represent numbers
Gear-based machines (1600s-1800s)
Positions of gears represent numbers
Blaise Pascal, Wilhelm Leibniz, Charles
Babbage

Abacus

Pascals mechanical calculator - 1645

Blaise Pascal

Pascaline

Wilhelm Schickard

Leibnizs Wheel

Babbages Difference
Engine
Part of the Difference Engine (below)

Replica of Difference Engine (right)

Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that

eventually led to more complex designs.
The first difference engine was composed of around 25,000 parts, weighed
fifteen tons (13,600 kg), and stood 8 ft (2.4 m) high. Although he received
ample funding for the project, it was never completed. (Wikipedia)

Early Data Storage

Punched cards
First used in Jacquard Loom (1801) to store patterns for
weaving cloth
Storage of programs in Babbages Analytical Engine
Popular through the 1970s

Jacquard loom

The Jacquard loom was the first machine to use punch cards
to control a sequence of operations.
Did not do computation, but important in history of computer
science.
The ability to change the pattern of the loom's weave by
simply changing cards
An important conceptual precursor to the development of
computer programming. (Wikipedia)

Augusta Ada Byron

Augusta Ada King, Countess of

Lovelace (1815-1852)
Mainly known for having written
a description of Charles
Babbage's early mechanical
general-purpose computer, the
analytical engine.
She is also known as the "first
programmer".
The computer language Ada,
created by the U.S. Defense
Department, was named after
Ada Lovelace (1980).

Early Computers

Here is a brief overview of some of the early computers and

trends in computing.

First Generation
Vacuum
Tubes
1930s Vacuum tubes were used as

electronic circuits or electronic switches

By John Ambrose Fleming in 1904

First Generation Vacuum

Tubes
First electronic digital computer built by Konrad Zuse, who

developed his first machine, the Z1, in his parents' living room in
Berlin in 1938.
Another early digital computer was built by Dr. John Atanasoff
and his assistant Clifford Berry, known as the ABC (Atanasoff
Berry Computer) built at Iowa State University during 1937-42.

1946 - ENIAC

First large-scale electronic digital computer was ENIAC

(Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator)
30 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet high
3 additions every second, (incredibly slow by todays
standards).

1946 - ENIAC

Grace Hopper, one of the first

programmers on the ENIAC
and the developer of the
programming language
COBOL, says, It was the first
machine that assisted the
power of mans brain instead
of the strength of his arm.
ENIAC was developed long
before the days of silicon
chips or microchips, even
before the transistor was
invented.
Like ABC, ENIAC was made up
of vacuum tubes, over 18,000
of them!

1951- UNIVAC 1

1951 the first commercially available computer was developed, the

UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) using vacuum tubes
3,000 additions every second.
In 5 years we were going a thousand times faster.

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1951- UNIVAC 1

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, with other programmers.

Photo taken, August 13, 1957

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Second Generation
Transistors
1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley invented the transistor at Bell Laboratories
Replaced the vacuum tube as an electronic switch

1954 - TRADIC

TRADIC (TRAnsistorized
Airborne DIgital
Computer)
800 transistors.
First computer system to
completely use
transistors
First computer to be
successfully operated in
an aircraft, an
environment which was
hostile to previous
computer systems.

Second Generation Transistors

Transistors were:

Smaller
Faster
More reliable
Less expensive

Third Generation Integrated

Circuits
1959, Jack Kirby and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor

(who was later to become the cofounder of Intel Corp.)

developed the first integrated circuit (silicon chip or
microchip).
An integrated circuit (IC) is a system of interrelated circuits
packaged together on a single sliver of silicon.
It is a way of placing multiple (millions) transistor devices into
as single, smaller device, the microchip.

Third Generation Integrated

Circuits

ICs, chips,
were:
Smaller
Faster
More reliable
Less
expensive

1960 IBM 360

1 addition every billionth of a second
(nanosecond), or a billion additions every
second

Fourth Generation - Microprocessor

A microprocessor is a Central Processing Unit (CPU) on a

single chip.
1971, Intel Corp. introduced the first microprocessor chip.
Intel 4004

108 kHz and contained (equivalent of) 2300 transistors

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IBM used it for calculators not

computers
Busicom desk-top printing calculator, the worlds first
commercial product to use a microprocessor.
Used the Intel 4004 CPU.

1975 - Altair 8800

Ed Roberts and
the first
microcomputer or
personal computer
(for the consumer)
the Altair 8800

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MITS Altair 8800

Microcomputer - a
computer which has a
microprocessor.
Used the Intel 8080
Microprocessor

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Microprocessors

1976 - Apple I
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak developed the Apple
I microcomputer in their basement.
Though it was a flop, its successor became the first
popular home computer

1977 Apple II

Rick Graziani
graziani@cabrillo.edu

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Others from 1977 - 1981

Commodore
PET 2001

Kaypro

Osbourne

Tandy TRS-80

Others from 1977 - 1981

Texas Instruments

Atari

Timex Sinclair

IMSAI

1981 IBM PC

What everyone was waiting for, or fearing

Open Architecture and IBM

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1984 Apple Macintosh

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1985 Microsoft Windows

1.0

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1987 IBM PS2 and OS2

Closed architecture (similar to Apple)

Fifth Generation Artificial

Intelligence
The theory and development of computer systems able to perform
tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual
perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation
between languages.