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he First Computing Machines "Computers". Since ancient times, people have had ways to deal with data and numbers. Early people tied knots in rope and carved marks on clay tablets to keep track of livestock and trade. Some people think ABACUS to be the first true computing aid.
The next big step for computers arrived in the 1830's when Charles Babbage decided to build a machine to help him complete and print mathematical tables. Babbage was a mathematician who taught at Cambridge University in England. He began planning his calculating machine calling it the Analytical Engine. The idea for this machine was amazingly like the computer we know today. It was to read a program from punched cards, figure and store the answers to different problems, and print the answer on paper. Babbage died before he could complete the machine. However because of his remarkable ideas and work, Babbage is know as the Father of Computers.
The next huge step for computers came when Herman Hollerith entered a contest given by the U.S. Census Bureau. The contest was to see who could build a machine that would count and record information faster. Hollerith, a young man working for the Bureau built a machine called the Tabulating Machine that read and sorted data from punched cards. The holes punched in the cards matched each person's answers to questions.
Thanks to Hollerith's machine, instead of taking seven and a half years to count the census information it only took three years, even with 13 million more people since the last census. Happy with his success, Hollerith formed the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. The company later was sold in 1911. And in 1912 his company became the International Business Machines Corporation, better know today as IBM.
For the first time, computer used vacuum tube, an electronic device to hold computation. Vacuum tube is in big size. And one computer may consist of tens even hundreds of vacuum tube. That’s why it is no wonder if the first generation of computer may have a very big size like a house.
The second generation of computer began with the invention of transistor to replace the use of vacuum tube. The effect of this invention is the reduce on the size of computer. The size of transistor may be like a peanut-size. That’s why there is a significant reduce in the size of computer.
The next generation is the use of Integrated Circuit (IC) to replace transistor. One IC may consist of thousands of transistor. Finally the IC also gets evolution into VLSI which consists of thousands of IC. That’s about the processor.
The third device is output device. Output device is any device that can produce information as the result of computer process. This information can be displayed in a monitor, or can be listened via speaker, or can be read such as in printing form like paper.
Recently there are two kinds of monitor, the first is CRT monitor which is use electronic tube that’s why the size is big. The second is LCD. LCD has slim form since it has flat monitor, the technology that is used also for notebook and laptop.
The last device is storage. Actually this device is used to store or save any information from a processor. The most common of storage device are hard disk, flash disk, floppy disk, CDROM (optical disk), magnetic tape, etc.
Chronology
- In 1939 John V. Atanasoff (1903-1995) and graduate student Clifford Berry of Iowa State College built an analog mechanical computer for solving linear equations.
- In 1941 Atanasoff and Berry complete another computer for solving linear equations with 60 50-bit words of memory using capacitors. The computer is later known as the ABC, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
- In December 1943 the Colossus is built at Bletchley Park. It has 2,400 vacuum tubes and is designed for the purpose of aiding in the decyphering of German secret messages.
- By 1945 Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) had developed a series of general-purpose electronic calculators, named Z1 through Z4.
- In 1946 the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was unveiled. It was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania.
- In 1947 Bell Telephone Laboratories develops the transistor.
- Howard Aiken and Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) (and IBM?) designed the Harvard Mark I, a large electromechanical computing device, unveiled 21 June 1948 The Mark V was a general-purpose electromechanical computer.
- In 1949 Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, and Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn the Manchester Mark I.
- On March 31, 1951, the US Census Bureau accepted the first UNIVAC. J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. Remington Rand Inc, First commercial computer. 54,000 vacuum tubes, 2.25 MHz. The news media conducted a mock inquiry to UNIVAC concerning its prediction of the election outcome of the 1952 presidential election between Eisenhower and Stevenson
- John von Neumann (1903-1957) helped designed the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) which began limited operation in 1951.
- IBM 650 introduced in 1953
- IBM 7090 the first of the "second-generation" of computers build with transitors was introduced in 1958.
- Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductor both announce the integrated circuit in 1959.
- DEC PDP 8 the first minicomputer sold for $18,000 in 1963.
- The IBM 360 is introduced in April of 1964. It used integrated circuits
- In 1968 Intel is established by Robert Noyce, Grove, and Moore.
- In 1970 the floppy disk was inroduced
- 1972 -- Intel's 8008 and 8080
- 1972 -- DEC PDP 11/45
- 1976 -- Jobs and Wozniak build the Apple I
- 1978 -- DEC VAX 11/780
- 1979 -- Motorolla 68000
- 1981 -- IBM PC
- 1982 -- Compaq IBM-compatible PC
- 1984 -- Sony and Phillips CD-ROM
- 1988 -- Next computer by Steve Jobs
- 1992 -- DEC 64-bit RISC alpha
- 1993 -- Intel's Pentium
- 1994: AMD and Compaq form an alliance to support the Compaq computers with Am486 microprocessors.
- 1997: Intel launches 64-bit processor technology, Epic. He also introduced the MMX Pentium for digital signal processor applications, which also includes graphics, audio, and voice processing.
- 1998: Intel introduced the Celeron processor in April.
- 1999: VIA Cyrix Corp. acquired. and Centaur Technology, makers of x86 processors and x87 co-processor.
- 2000: Pentium 4 with 42 million transistors.
- 2003: AMD introduced the x86-64, 64-bit versions of x86 instruction set.
- 2004: AMD to demonstrate dual-core x86 processor chip.
- 2005: Intel Dual-Core processor sells first.
- 2006: Dell Inc. announced it will offer systems based on AMD processors.
- 2006: Introducing Intel core 2 duo processor in the month of July.
- 2007: Intel introduces two quad-core processor in January.
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