History of the computer began with primitive design in the early 19 the century and went on to change the world during 20 century .
The history of computers goes back over 200 years. At first theorized by mathematicians and entrepreneurs, during the 19th century mechanical calculating machines were designed and built to solve the increasingly complex number-crunching challenges. The advancement of technology enabled ever more-complex computers by the early 20th century, and computers became larger and more powerful.
Today, computers are almost unrecognizable from designs of the 19th century, such as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine — or even from the huge computers of the 20th century that occupied whole rooms, such as the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator.
Here's a brief history of computers, from their primitive number-crunching origins to the powerful modern-day machines that surf the Internet, run games and stream multimedia.
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19 th century
1801: Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French merchant and inventor invents a loom that uses punched wooden cards to automatically weave fabric designs. Early computers would use similar punch cards.
1821: English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute tables of numbers. Funded by the British government, the project, called the "Difference Engine" fails due to the lack of technology at the time, according to the University of Minnesota.
1848: Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician and the daughter of poet Lord Byron, wrote the world's first computer program. According to Anna Siffert, a professor of theoretical mathematics at the University of Münster in Germany, Lovelace wrote the first program while translating a paper on Babbage's Analytical Engine from French into English. "She also provides her own comments on the text. Her annotations, simply called "notes," turn out to be three times as long as the actual transcript," Siffert wrote in an article for The Max Planck Society. "Lovelace also adds a step-by-step description for computation of Bernoulli numbers with Babbage's machine — basically an algorithm — which, in effect, makes her the world's first computer programmer." Bernoulli numbers are a sequence of rational numbers often used in computation.
1853: Swedish inventor Per Georg Scheutz and his son Edvard design the world's first printing calculator. The machine is significant for being the first to "compute tabular differences and print the results," according to Uta C. Merzbach's book, "Georg Scheutz and the First Printing Calculator" (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977).
1890: Herman Hollerith designs a punch-card system to help calculate the 1890 U.S. Census. The machine, saves the government several years of calculations, and the U.S. taxpayer approximately $5 million, according to Columbia University Hollerith later establishes a company that will eventually become International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
Early 20th century
1931: At the Massachusetts institute of Technology ( MIT), Vannevar Bush invented and built the Differential Analyzer, the first large-scale automatic general-purpose mechanical analog
Computer, acccording to Stanford university.
1936: Alan turning, a british scientist and mathematician , Presents the principle of a universal machine, later called the turning machine , in a paper called " on computable Numbers..."
according to Chris Bernhardt's book " turning's Vision " ( The MIT Press , 2017 ) . Turning machines are capable of computing anything that is computable. the central concept of the modern computer is based on his Ideas. Turning is later involed in the development of the turning-Welchman Bombe, and elctro-mechanical device designed to decipher Nazi code during world war II, according to the UK's National Museum of computing .
1937
John vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at lowa state university , sumbits a grant proposal to build the first electric-only computer , without using gears , cams belts or shafts
1939: David Packard and Bill Hewlett found the Hewlett Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. The pair decide the name of their new company by the toss of a coin, and Hewlett-Packard's first headquarters are in Packard's garage, according to MIT.
1941: German inventor and engineer Konrad Zuse completes his Z3 machine, the world's earliest digital computer, according to Gerard O'Regan's book "A Brief History of Computing" (Springer, 2021). The machine was destroyed during a bombing raid on Berlin during World War II. Zuse fled the German capital after the defeat of Nazi Germany and later released the world's first commercial digital computer, the Z4, in 1950, according to O'Regan.
1941: Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, design the first digital electronic computer in the U.S., called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). This marks the first time a computer is able to store information on its main memory, and is capable of performing one operation every 15 seconds, according to the book "Birthing the Computer" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016)
1945: Two professors at the University of Pennsylvania, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, designed and built the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). The machine is the first "automatic, general-purpose, electronic, decimal, digital computer," according to Edwin D. Reilly's book "Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology" (Greenwood Press, 2003).
1939: David Packard and Bill Hewlett found the Hewlett Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. The pair decide the name of their new company by the toss of a coin, and Hewlett-Packard's first headquarters are in Packard's garage, according to MIT.
1941: German inventor and engineer Konrad Zuse completes his Z3 machine, the world's earliest digital computer, according to Gerard O'Regan's book "A Brief History of Computing" (Springer, 2021). The machine was destroyed during a bombing raid on Berlin during World War II. Zuse fled the German capital after the defeat of Nazi Germany and later released the world's first commercial digital computer, the Z4, in 1950, according to O'Regan.
1941: Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, designed the first digital electronic computer in the U.S., called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). This marks the first time a computer is able to store information on its main memory, and is capable of performing one operation every 15 seconds, according to the book "Birthing the Computer" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016)
1945: Two professors at the University of Pennsylvania, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, design and build the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). The machine is the first "automatic, general-purpose, electronic, decimal, digital computer," according to Edwin D. Reilly's book "Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology" (Greenwood Press, 2003).
1946: Mauchly and Presper leave the University of Pennsylvania and receive funding from the Census Bureau to build the UNIVAC, the first commercial computer for business and government applications.
1947: William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of Bell Laboratories invent the transistor. They discover how to make an electric switch with solid materials and without the need for a vacuum.
1949: A team at the University of Cambridge develops the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), "the first practical stored-program computer," according to O'Regan. "EDSAC ran its first program in May 1949 when it calculated a table of squares and a list of prime numbers," O'Regan wrote. In November 1949, scientists with the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), now called CSIRO, build Australia's first digital computer called the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer (CSIRAC). CSIRAC is the first digital computer in the world to play music, according to O'Regan.
Late 20 century
1953: In 1953 Grace hopper developed the first computer language which eventually becomes known as COBOL which stands for common Buiness-Oriented language according to National Business museum of American History. Hopper is later dubbed " the " first Lady of software" in her posthumous presidenital Medal of Freeedon cittation . Thomas Johnson watson Jr., son in her posthumous Presindential Medal of Freedom citation. Thomas Johnson Watson Jr., son in of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson watson sr.conceives the IBM 701 EDPM to help the united Nations Keep tabs on Korea During the war. 1954: John Backus and his team of programmers at IMB publish a paper describing their newly created FORTRAN Programming Language , as acronym For Formula Translation according to MIT. 1958 : Jack kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip. kibly is later awarded the Nobel prize in physics for his work . 1968 : Douglas Engelbart reveals a prototype of the mordern computer at the fall Joint Computer Conferecne , San Francisco. His Presentation , Called " A Research Center for Augmeting Humn Intellect" includes alive Demonstration of his computer , including a mouse and a graphical user interface ( GUI), accroding to the Doug Engelbart institute . This marks the development of the computer from specialized machine for academics to technology that is more accessible to the general Public.
1969:
Ken Thomson ,Dennies rechie and group of other developer at bell lab produce Unix an operating system .
that made large scale networking in diverse computing system - abd tge internet - practical , " according to Bell Labs. The team behind UNIX Continued to develop the operating system using the C programing language , which they also optimized.
1970: the newly formed Intel unveil the 1103 , the first dynamic
access memory chip
1971 : A team of IBM engineer led by Alan shugart invents the " floppy disk " enabling the data to be shared on differnet .
1972 : A ralph bear A german american Engineer, releases Magnavox Odyssey , the worl's home Game console, in the september 1972, according to the Computer Museum of America Months laters, entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell and engineer Al Alcorn with Atari relaease pong, the world's commercially successful video game.
1973: Robert Metcallfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, devolps Ethernet for connecting Multiple computers and other Hardware.
1977: The commodore Personal Electronic Transactor ( PET) , is released onto the home computer market , featuring an MOS technology 8-bit 6502 microprocessor, which controls the screen, keyboard and cassette player , The Pet is especially successful in the education market , according to O ' Regan .
1975: The magazine cover of the january issue of "Popular Electronics" highlights the Altair 8080 as the " world' first minicomputer kit to rival commercial models. " After seeing the magazine isue tow " Computer geeks, " Paul Allen and Bill Gates , Offer to write seeeing the magazine issue , two, " computer geeks, " Paul Allen and Bill Gates , , offer to write software for The alair , using the new Basic language. On April 4 , after the success of this first endeavor, the two childhood friends forms their own software company mircrosoft.
1976 : steve Jobs and steve Wozniak co-found Apple computer on A prill Fool's DAy. they unviel Apple I , the first computer with a single-circuit board and RoM ( REad Only Memory ) .
according MIT.
1983: The Apple Lisa standing for " Local integrated Software Architecture " But also the name of steve Job's daughter , according to National Museum of American History (NMAH) , is the first personal computer to feature a GUI. The machine also includes a drop -down menu and icons. flip-form design and the very first to be sold as a " Laptop."
1984: The apple macintosh is announced to the world during a superbowl advertisement. the macintosh is launced with retail price of $ 2500 , according to NMAH.
1985: As a response to The Apple lisa 's GUI , microsoft releases windows in November 1985
the gardian reparted . Meanwhile , commodore announces The Amiga 1000.
1989: The Berners-Lee, a British researcher at the European Organization Nuclear Research (CERN), submits his proposal for what would become the world wide web. His paper details his ideas for Hyper Markup Language ( HTML), The building Blocks of the web.
1993:The pentium microprossor advances the graphic and music on PC.
1996: Sergy brin and larry page devolped the google search engine at Stanford university
1997: microsoft invest 150 $ million in apple which at time struggling the financially at that time.
The investment went on ongoing court case in which microsoft
1999: Wi-Fi , the abbreviated term for "wirelesss fidelity " is developed , intially covering a distance for up to 300 feet ( 91 meters ) Wired reported
21 century
2001 : Mac OS X , later renamed OS X then simply macOS, is released by apple as the successor to its standard Mac operating system . OS X goes through 16 different versions, each with "10" as its title , and the first nine iterations are nicknamed after big cats , with the first being codenamed "Cheetah" TechRadarreported .
2003: AMD's Athlon 64 , the first 64-bit processor for personal computers is released to customers.
2004. The Mozilla Corporation launches Mozilla Firefox 1.0 . The web browser is one of the first major challenges to internet Explorer, owned by Microsoft . During it first five years, firefox exceeded a billion downloads by users according to the web Design Museum.
2005; Google buys Andrion, A Linux-based mobile phone operation system.
2006: Google buys Andriond, Linux-based mobile phone operation system .
2006 : The Mac book Pro from Apple hits the shelves the Pro is the company's first intel based dual -core mobile computer .
2009: Microsoft launches windows 7 on July 22 . The new operating system features the ability to pin applocations to the taskbar, scatter windwos away by shaking another window .
Amazing calculators before computers
Abacus 2700 AC
Abacus 2700 ac
Abacus is a manual aid to calculating that consists of beads or Disks that can be moved up and down on a series of sticks or strings withing a usually wooden frame.
The abacus itself doesn't calculate, it's simply a device for helping a human being to calculate by remembering what has been counted . The modern Chinese abacus, Which is still widely used in China and other countries, date from about 1200 A.D.
It is possible that it derives from the earlier counting board is used around the Mediterranean as early as 300 B.C. An Aztec version a an abacus , Circa 900-1000
A.D, is made from Maize ( corn) threaded through strings mounted in a wooden frame.
Pascal calculator 1652
the Pascaline or Pascal calculator was invented by blaise pascal in 1652 to help his father .
a tax collector in his calculating labour .
Machine can add and subtract directly and multiply and divide directly .
Pascal created 50 prototypes before making this machine public 1952.
He made numerous revision of this machine.
Only nine machine survived in the time. Most of them are in Museum in Egypt.
Stepped Reckenor 1964
Stepped Reckenor was invented Gotfried Leibniz . It was the first Machine calculate all four arithmetic operation . it was the only machine which use cursor.
Therefore I have memory for storing operand.
Leibniz built two stepped recknor. one in 1694 and second in 1706 . The second one was forgotten at attic university of Gotfried Leibniz discovered 250 year later .
Arithmometer 1820
Arithmometer 1820 was patented by Thomas De Colmar in 18 50 and was first machine to to used in offices from 1850 1890. The Arithmometer was the first machine only used in production
The machine can perform addition subtraction directly and can perform long multiplication and division .
Comptometer 1887 and Comptograph 1889
Comptometer was the first machine calculator with keyboard.
The keyboard consist of 8 column of 9 keys. the Comptometer was very similar to Pascaline and can perform faster calculation due to its keyboard.
And it can perform long multiplication and division. Some Comptometer have keys for special purpose su ch as currency and weight.
Comptograph is improved version of Comptometer with printing mechanism.
Despite its improvement. it is very complicated to use and therefore slower .
Difference Engine 1822
Difference Engine was invented by charlies Babbage in 1822.
It would have been the first machine capable of calculating and holding 7 numbers with 31 digits each and automatically used results from previous operation as input.
it was designed to tabulate polynomial function.
the project was never completed and abandoned in 18 34.
Analytic Engine
after abandoning the Difference Engine . Babbage started to work on analytic engine. the Ancestor of modern computer. The computer has two separate input stream .
Three output results.
Processing unit and memory .
it was the first machine have programming set of instruction.
it was Lady Ada Love Lovelace .
Who wrote alogritham to compute Bernoulli numbers the first program ever created .
Hence earning her to be first computer programmer. Babbage was not able to complete analytic engine
due to inadequate funding .
9. Millionaire 1893
The millionaire was the first calculating machine .
that can perform direct multiplication unlike its predecessor .
where multiplication was performed as repeated addition .
the millionaire required only one turn of crack and handle to multipy and entered numbers by a multiply .
