Chapter :1 Fundamentals of Computer Part - 3. History of the Development of Computers

Chapter :1 
Fundamentals of Computer
Part - 3. History of the Development of Computers

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History of the Development of Computers:

In beginning, there were no computers. To add or subtract , man used his fingers and toes. Abacus is known to be the first mechanical calculating device. The main purpose of abacus was that additions and subtraction coud be performed quickly. Abacus was developed by the Egyptians in the 10th centuary B.C, but the final structure was given in the 12th centuary A.D. by the Chinese educationists. Abacus is made up of a frame in which rods are fitted across with rounds beads sliding on the rod. 

Napier

Napier’s Bones in an Abacus invented by John Napier.Napier’s used the bone rods for counting purpose where numbers were printed on them. With the help of these rods ,one could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division speediy. 

Pascal’s calculator called ‘Pascaline’

In the year 1642, Blaise Pascal a French scientist invented an adding machine called Pascal’s calculator, which represents the position of digit with the help of gears in it. Though these machines were early forerunners to computer engineering, the calculator failed to be a great commercial success. 

Leibniz Calculator

Leibniz was successfully introduced as a calculator onto the market in the year 1646. It was designed further in 1673 but it took until 1694 to complete. The calculator could perform the basic mathematical operations such as add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Wheels were placed at right angles which could be displaced by a special stepping mechanism.

Analytical Engine “The first Computer”

This analytical engine, the first fully-automatic calculating machine, was constructed by British computing pioneer Charles Babbage (1791-1871), who first conceived the idea of an advanced calculating machine to calculate and print mathematical tables in 1812. This Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms as Turing-complete.