A Brief History of Computer
The
ancient Romans developed an Abacus, the first "machine" for
calculating. The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses),
also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that has been in use
since ancient times and is still in use today. The abacus was
invented in Babylonia in 2400 B.C. The abacus in the form we
are most familiar with was first used in China in around 500 B.C. It used to
perform basic arithmetic operations. multiply, divide and calculate square and
cube roots by moving the rods around and placing them in specially constructed
boards. Example A Chinese abacus is “Suanpan” and A
Japanese abacus “Soroban”.
The
term 'Computer' was first introduced in 1640 and referred to as 'one who
calculates'. It was derived from the Latin word 'compute', which means 'to
calculate'. In 1897, it was known as the 'calculating machine'. Later in 1945,
the term 'computer' was introduced as 'programmable digital electronic
computer, which is now called a 'computer'.
Some
people say that COMPUTER stands for Common Operating Machine
Purposely Used for Technological and Educational Research. It is only a
myth because first this definition does not make any sense and second when the
computer was invented, they were just calculating machines which needs a lot of
space for establishment.
When
the computers were introduced, they were large and could fill an entire room.
Some computers were operated using large-sized vacuum tubes. In 1833, Charles
Babbage invented an early calculator, which was named as the 'difference
engine'. Later in 1837, he introduced the first mechanical, general-purpose
computer 'Analytical Engine'. Over time, computers became powerful in
performance and small in size. Analytical Engine was the first computer which
was invented by Charles Babbage in 1837. It used punch cards as read-only
memory. Charles Babbage is also known as the father of the computer.
The first
computer programming language was created in 1883, when a woman
named Ada Lovelace (Full name: Augusta Ada
King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace) worked with Charles Babbage on his very
early mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine. While Babbage was concerned
with simply computing numbers, Lovelace saw that the numbers the computer
worked with could represent something other than just amounts of things. She
wrote an algorithm for the Analytical Engine that was the first of its kind.
Because of her contribution, Lovelace is credited with creating the first
computer programming language. She is today known as the first computer
programmer.
The first
substantial computer was the giant ENIAC machine by John W.
Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC
(Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator) used a word of 10 decimal
digits instead of binary ones like previous automated calculators/computers.
ENIAC was also the first machine to use more than 2,000 vacuum tubes, using
nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes. Storage of all those vacuum tubes and the machinery
required to keep the cool took up over 167 square meters (1800 square feet) of
floor space. Nonetheless, it had punched-card input and output and
arithmetically had 1 multiplier, 1 divider-square rooter, and 20 adders
employing decimal "ring counters," which served as adders and also as
quick-access (0.0002 seconds) read-write register storage.
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