Computer history

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was born in England in 1971, he was an inventor and a mathematician.

He realised that if the machine could solve the equation, this would be much better by calculating the difference between them.

Therefore he built his own model, which was called DIFFERENCE ENGINE.

In 1830 he demonstratingly began to build a scale-working version, using a grant from the British Government. Babbage found that the imperfections in his machine were enough to throw the machine out of whack.

Babbage was trying to make the machine ridiculous. Finally when spending money to no avail, the government withdrew financial support. After this setback in computer history, he was still not discouraged. He started to work on his other project, ANALYTICAL ENGINE.

He hoped that this would perform many calculations. It was not built in his lifetime, but his son put the model together.

The working version of analytical engine was built and put to public display in London in 1991.

Babbage’s second difference engine was not completed in his lifetime. But it was built in 1991 which changed computer history and was displayed in London Science Museum in honor of Babbage’s 200th birthday.

Ages of Computer history

The computer had covered so many remarkable things in a very short period of time.

We have jumped over through four generations of computer technology in only 40 years.

Measures of time for computer history while events are within the memories of many people today.

The first three: the vacuum tube, the transistor, and the integrated circuit.

Each has directly changed the nature of the computer. Here we are providing only the timing of each generation according to the beginning of commercial delivery of the hardware technology.

Defining subsequent generations has become more complicated because the entire industry has become more complicated.

First Generation (Since 1951-1958)

The use of commercial computer is dated to June 14, 1951. In this date the first UNIVAC-Universal Automatic Computer-was given to a client, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, for use in tabulating the previous year’s census.

Before this the computer was used for the military, scientific, or engineering use.

In the first generation of computer history the Vacuum TUBES were used as the internal computer components.

Because of the use of thousands of tubes, they generated a great amount of heat, causing many problems in temperature regulation and climate control.

The machine language, which was used in it, was also a problem for the user to understand.

Second Generation (Since 1959-1964)

In this generation of computer history the VACUUM TUBES was replaced with TRANSISTORS, a small device that transfers electronic signals across a resistor.

Another remarkable invention of this generation was the move from machine language to ASSEMBLY LANGUAGES, also called SYMBOLIC LANGUAGES.

This language uses abbreviations for instructions like L for LOAD etc.

After this the symbolic languages came HIGH-LEVEL LANGUAGES, such as FORTRAN and COBOL. Also the first removable disk was introduced in the same age.

Third Generation (Since 1965-1970)

In this generation, IC (INTEGRATED CIRCUITS) began to replace the transistors. And the computers, which use IC, were called third-generation computers.

Fourth Generation (Since 1971-Present)

Among the 1970s computers gained speed, reliability and storage capacity, in this age the special kind of chips are introduced in the computer market.

These chips are known as MICROPROCESSOR, which became available in 1971.

Now we can find this microprocessor in anywhere, such as the microwave oven, washing machine, telephone, television, cars and many more.

In simple terminology we are using 100s of microprocessor in our daily life or in our home appliances.

Compared to the first generation these microprocessors are 100 times smaller, and a lot more powerful then those predecessors.

Fifth Generation

The concentration of this generation is connecting computers with other computers through out the globe.

In this generation the highway of information is getting larger. And people from both sides of the world (professional and home users) are sharing their ideas easily.

For a timline on the history of computing click computer history

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