EVOLUTION OF

COMPUTERS
A Timeline of the major computer advancements

Taranjot Singh
 FORTRAN Logic Programming
Turing Machines (1957) (1970s-90s)
(1936)
Assembly Language
(1947-50)

Stored-Program Object-Oriented
Architecture Programming
(1945-49) (1970s-90s) Neural Networks
Short Code (1949) (2010s- present)
1

TURING MACHINES
(1936)
Turing Machines, the term was first coined by Alonzo Church in
1937 after a review of his papers for creating a machine that
was capable of extending the limits of computability and building
a core foundation of theoretical computer science. The simple
machines are built to compute real numbers as a sequential
memory stored as a tape of infinite length that the machine
reads and conducts operations on.
The Turing Machines are a base of theoretical science, having a huge
impact on how we answer questions like “What is computation?” or “What
is an efficient computation?”. It is also one of the main models for research
into a broad range of subdisciplines in theoretical computer science such
as: variant and minimal models of computability, higher-order
computability, computational complexity theory, algorithmic information
theory, etc.
2
Stored-Program Architecture
(1945-1949)
Stored Program Architecture often known as “Von Neumann
Architecture” is the design model that every modern computer still
follows. As a continuation to the Turing Machines, early computers
could not be reprogrammed and did not have a data storage
system but the Von Neumann architecture proposed computers
that could change, save and reprogram the programs just like data
that was earlier not possible.

It had a great impact on making Computers a general-purpose machine

rather than a single task focused device. The core components of the
architecture included an Input/Output unit, a control unit, an arithmetic
logic unit and a memory, which are also the core components of a
modern CPU.
3
Assembly Language
(1947-1950)
Assembly Language was first introduced in the late 1940s, where
the computers were now programmed in symbolic programmatic
instructions rather than machine code and raw binary instructions.
Computers like IBM 701 that were programmed using assembly
language processed by “assemblers” to read the symbolic
programming language.

Assembly is still considered as a low-level language but it

made programming more accessible compared to raw machine
code. It enabled faster development and debugging, introducing
the basic concepts of programming language like variables.
 SHORT CODE
4

(1949)
Short Code was one of the first high level programming languages
originally introduced for the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC)
but was also later introduced in other computers. It was the first
language that was not compiled into machine code that is written
in calculated binary instructions but rather interpreted by
interpreters that were designed to convert each Short Code
instruction into machine readable binary code.

The introduction of Short Code made the idea of translation possible

due to interpreters turning mathematically derived human readable
code into binary machine code. It had a major role in reducing
programming complexity and a shift from hardware-centric to
software-centric thinking. It also paved a way for the development of
further higher-level languages like FORTRAN that later became the
most widely used high-level language, a heavy mathematically
expressive language.
 FORTRAN
5

(1957)
Developed at IBM under the leadership of John Backus, FORTRAN
(short for FORmula TRANslation) became the first widely
successful high-level programming language. Released in 1957 for
the IBM 704, it was designed to help scientists and engineers write
mathematical programs without dealing directly with machine
code. Its compiler was groundbreaking for its time, performing
sophisticated optimizations that made high-level code run nearly
as fast as hand-written assembly.

FORTRAN programs were mainly written to support scientific and

engineering applications like weather forecasting, computational
physics and many more. It proved the working of high-level
languages, introduced modern programming concepts, finally
enabling scientific and numerical computations, giving motivation for
the introduction of new computational languages like C, MATLAB and
many more.
6
Object-Oriented Programming
(1970s-80s)
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a type of programming
method that revolves around the usage of “objects” that can be
simplified into bundles of data or functions (methods). Writing
code in an object-oriented language gives the programmer an
advantage where the objects can interact with other objects,
manipulating data and functions that can be conducted on various
objects.

In today’s world, 93.4% of programmers use OOPs like Java,

Python, C++. Organizations like Netflix, NASA use OOPs to write
millions of lines of code and manage astronomical amounts of
data on a daily basis promoting scalability and reusability of code
that has become much easier to write and maintain. A major
advantage of using OOPs is the control over the graphical
interface, enabling event-driven programming.
7
Logic Programming
(1970s-90s)

Logic programming is a programming paradigm based on formal

logic, where programs are written as collections of facts, rules, and
queries. Instead of specifying step-by-step instructions, developers
describe relationships and conditions, and the system uses logical
inference to determine solutions. The most influential language in
this paradigm is Prolog (1972).

Logic programming simplifies development by using facts and rules,

improves clarity and maintainability, handles complex relationships
well, and supports automatic reasoning that benefits AI, expert
systems, and knowledge-based applications
 Neural Networks
8

(2010s-present)
Neural networks are computational models inspired by the
structure of the human brain. They consist of interconnected
layers of nodes (“neurons”) that process information by adjusting
connection weights based on data. Instead of being explicitly
programmed with rules, neural networks learn patterns through
training, making them especially powerful for tasks involving
perception, classification, and prediction. Early ideas emerged in
the 1950s, but neural networks became truly transformative with
improved algorithms, larger datasets, and modern hardware.

Neural networks played a major role in machine-derived learning

and processing rather than hand-crafted instructions, enabling
breakthroughs in image processing and speech recognition. It also
helped in the development of modern and faster GPUs and creating a
foundation for deep learning and AI-driven systems.
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