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NAME: NABEEL RIASAT

ROLL # S2F18BSEN0029

CLASS: BS ENGLISH 1

SUB: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT #1

HISTORY OF COMPUTER AND GENERATIONS

OF COMPUTER.
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HISTORY OF COMPUTER
One of the most useful and powerful device now a days are
computers, but a lot of people are un ware on how computer started
and who were the people that were behind the invention of the
computers. The invention of computer gave a lot of benefits and
satisfactions that why it is important to know and be able to thank
the people behind it.

Before we go through a very detailed history of computer,

let us first define computer. Although the definition of computer
changes as time goes by because of the continuing improvement of
computer. But in general, Computer is a device that stores data and
information which is manipulated and processed on a specific
program.

1) ABACUS: The first computer were actually people.

“People” is only a name called for the first computer since it
performs the work that had been previously assigned to
people .Early computers, which are mechanical computers
mainly performs calculations and other mathematical
operations. It all started with the invention of abacus. Abacus
originated in Babylonia but greatly used by Chinese people.
Abacus is one of the early devices that are used for
mathematical computations. The importance of abacus is that it
can aid the memory of the human performing the calculation
but the disadvantage of this device is it only specializes o two
mathematical operations which are addition and subtraction but
during this time ,early human beings were able to appreciate
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the importance of abacus and it is one of the most important
device used during the early times. Until now, abacus is still used
in the Far East we now have modem abacus which have more
advanced features.

An adapted abacus, invented by Tim Cranmer, called a

Cranmer abacus is still commonly used by individuals who are blind. A
piece of soft fabric or rubber is placed behind the beads so that they
do not move inadvertently. This keeps the beads in place while the
users feel or manipulate them. Abacuses come in different designs.
Some designs, like the bead frame consisting of beads divided into
tens, are used mainly to teach arithmetic, although they remain
popular in the post Soviet State as a tool. Other designs, such as the
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Japanese , have been used for practical calculations even involving
several digits. For any particular abacus design, there usually are
numerous different methods to perform a certain type of calculation,
which may include basic operations like addition and multiplication,
or even more complex ones, such as calculating. Some of these
methods may work with non natural numbers (numbers such as 1.5.

2)LOGARITHMS: The next device which is invented by John

Napier are the logarithms. Logarithms are more advanced device
which allows the use of all mathematical operations but
multiplications and division were made possible via addition and
subtraction. It allows you to perform all operand with the use of
printed tables, but later on, Napier bones is very sticks where the
logarithms values were engraved.

3) SLIDE RULE: The invention of Napier bone was followed

and it was called as the slide rule. Slide rule was invented by William
Ought and was first built in England during the year 1622. Slide rule is
a device which performs all the mathematical operations but it is
more commonly used for multiplication and division. Slide rules
appear as either linear or circular form which have set scales to
perform mathematical computations.
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The slide rule, also known colloquially in the United States as is

a mechanical analog computer. The slide rule is used primarily
for multiplication and division, and also for functions such
as exponents, root and trigonometry, but typically not for addition
or subtraction. Though similar in name and appearance to a
standard ruler, the slide rule is not meant to be used for
measuring length or drawing straight lines.
Slide rules exist in a diverse range of styles and generally appear
in a linear or circular form with a standardized set of markings
(scales) essential to performing mathematical computations. Slide
rules manufactured for specialized fields such as aviation or
finance typically feature additional scales that aid in calculations
common to those fields.
At its simplest, each number to be multiplied is represented by a
length on a sliding ruler. As the rulers each have a logarithmic
scale, it is possible to align them to read the sum of the
logarithms, and hence calculate the product, of the two numbers.
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4) SCHICKARD CALCULATING CLOCK: A more

advanced device was discovered by a German Professor named
William Schick on the year 1623 which is the Schick calculating
clock. It is a more advanced device which can add and subtract
six digits numbers unlike the earlier ones which can only compute
less than six digit numbers. The device can perform more
complex computation because of the Napier’s bone which is
mounted on the calculating clock. As we can see, it has more
advanced features compared to the earlier ones.

After careful examination it was found that drawings had been

published at least once per century starting from 1718, that his
machine was not complete and required additional wheels and
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springs and that it was designed around a single tooth carry
mechanism that didn't work properly when used in calculating clocks.

5) PASCALINE CALCULATOR: The last mechanical

computer invented was Pascal which was named after the inventor
Pascal. There were actually two different types of we have a six and
eight digit.  Pascal was inspired to invent this device because of the
heavy workload that his father is experiencing. Pascal can only
perform addition and subtraction but became popular because 50
units were placed throughout Europe although this device is not that
salable because when it comes to computation it is not that accurate
but this device was able to lessen the workload of tax collectors and
accountants.

5) ABC: After the invention of different mechanical computer,

electronic digital computer was introduced by Dr. John V and Clifford
Berry design. They were the ones who invented the Berry-Computer,
or ABC. ABC is made to solve some systems of linear equations bus
wasn’t fully functional because of its storage mechanism and paper
card writer/reader was unreliable that’s why it wasn’t considered as
the first digital computer. Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer or ENIAC was invented by J. Pres Eckert and John. ENIAC
was considered as the first digital computer that is fully functional. It
is a modular computer and composed of individual panels to perform
different functions and it does not only add and subtract but it can
also hold a ten-digit decimal number in its memory. It is also one of
the fastest devices in computing mathematical problems
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6) UNIVAC: ENIAC was then followed by one of the first

commercial computer which is the Universal Automatic Computer I or
simply called as UNIVAC I which was also designed by the inventors of
ENIAC. UNIVAC I is one of the fastest in computing Mathematical
operations, the add time of UNIVAC I is 120 microseconds, multiply
time is 1,800 microseconds and divide time is 3,600 microseconds. So
UNIVAC I is very efficient especially when it comes to business and of
course in computing different math problem.
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The Universal Automatic Computer or UNIVAC was a computer

milestone achieved by Dr. Pres Eckert and Dr. John Mau.

7) MODERN COMPUTERS: After electronic digital

computer here comes the modern computer. The first modern
computer was the difference engine. It is an early calculator
developed by a British Mathematician who is Charles Babbage.
Difference Engine consists of wheels and rods but was not completed
by Charles Babbage because of his attention to analytical engine. The
history of modern computer begins with the invention of Analytical
Engine which was Invented again by Charles Babbage but now with
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the help of his assistant and collaborator Lovelace. Analytical engine is
a fully program-controlled and an automatic mechanical digital
computer. It consists of four components namely the mill, the store,
the reader and the printer. These four components are one of the
most important components of today’s modern computer. The mill
was the calculating unit which is equivalent to the CPU in modern
computer, the store was where the data were stored same as the
memory and storage in modern computer, and the reader and the
printer were the input and output devices. Basically, analytical engine
is one of the most advanced device and likely to be a replica of
today’s modern computer.
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The history of computer evolved from mechanical computer to

electronic digital computer to modern computer. Computer had
gone through a lot of different process, inventions and studies
before being able to make the high tech computer which were
the ones that we are using at present that’s why it is important
for us to know on how computer started and how it evolved as
time pass by. Until now, they are still working on improving
computer and just recently, they are now making computer even
more advanced like making it light and small and even adding
more advanced features.
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GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER
There are five generations of computer which are described as
follows:

FIRST WITHIN VACCUN TUBES:

First Computer Generation: 1940s -1950s: (Vacuum Tubes).

First generation computers were actually the first general

purpose and true digital computers. They came in time to replace
the electromechanical systems which were way too slow for
assigned tasks.

A case in point was the need by the USA army to have machines
capable of computing artillery firing tables fast enough. Existing
ones took almost two days. When completed the new machines
computed this table data in seconds. Fortunately or
unfortunately, they became available only after the end of World
War II in 1946.
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The first computer generations used vacuum tubes for amplification

and switching purposes. The tubes were made of sealed glass
containers, the size of light bulbs. The sealed glass allowed current to
flow wirelessly from the filaments to metal plates. And because there
were no moving parts in the system, the flow amplified current to
enable the computer to manipulate assigned tasks. Vacuum tubes
also started and ended the circuitry by switching on and off when
turned on or off.

Besides boasting of thousands of resisters and capacitors, these

computers would use anything up to and over 17,000 vacuum tubes,
which meant computer installations covered entire rooms.
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Input and output was done using punch cards, magnetic drums,
typewriters and punch card readers. Initially, technicians manually
perforated the cards with holes. This was later done using computers.

Interfacing with first gen systems was done using plug boards and
machine language. The technicians wired up electrical circuits by
connecting numerous cables to plug boards.

Then they slotted in specified punched cards into them and waited
for hours for some form of computation while hoping every one of the
thousands of vacuum tubes lasted the distance. Last they went
through the procedure again.

A record machine plug board

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These machines were intended for low-level operations and thus
programming was done using only binary digits 0s and 1s. The
systems could solve only one problem at a time. Assembly language
and operating system software were nonexistent.

One of the most outstanding computers in this era was The ENIAC
(Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), which was designed
and built by Engineers John W. and J. Pres Eckert of the University of
Pennsylvania. Its assembly was done by a team of fifty men.

It was 1000 times faster than the previous electromechanical

computers but was a little slow when it came to re-programming.

Among many things, The ENIAC was used to study the feasibility of
thermonuclear weaponry, firing of ballistic artillery and engine
thermal ignition, and elsewhere, for weather predictions.

The left side of the ENIAC computer

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These systems were enormous in size and occupied

entire rooms while using lots of electric power. This
made them generate unbearable heat.
A list of popular computers of first generation is as
follows:

 THE ENIAC (1946)

 EDSAC (1949)
 EDVAC (1950)
 UNIVAC (1951)

The UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), still by Engineers

John W. and J. Eckert was the first in the same era to be designed
for commercial other than military use. It manipulated both the
alphabet and numbers fairly well and was used by USA Census
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Bureau to enumerate the general population. It was later used to
manipulate payrolls, records, company sales, and even predicted
presidential election results in 1952.

Unlike the over 17,000 vacuum tubes in The ENIAC, UNIVAC I

used slightly over 5,000 vacuum tubes. It was also half the size of
its predecessor and sold over 46 units.

UNIVAC as exhibited in the Vienna Technical Museum

Characteristics of first generation computers:

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 used vacuum tubes for circuitry
 Electron emitting metal in vacuum tubes burned out easily
 Used magnetic drums for memory
 Were huge, slow, expensive, and many times undependable
 Were expensive to operate
 Were power hungry
 Generated a lot of heat which would make them malfunction
 Solved one problem at a time
 Used input based on punched cards
 Had their outputs displayed in print outs
 Used magnetic tapes
 Used machine language
 Had limited primary memory
 Were programming only in machine language.

Second Generation Computers: 1950s -1960s:

(Transistors and Batch Filing)

These were computers which used transistors instead of vacuum

tubes. They were better than their predecessors in many ways
because of apparent small size, speed and cheaper cost.

Transistors are more or less the building blocks of any microchip out
there, and also, more reliable, energy efficient and capable of
conducting electricity faster and better.
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The transistor was used in the 2nd computer generation

Just like vacuum tubes, transistors are switches or electronic

gates used to amplify or control current, or switch electric
signals on and off. They are called semiconductors because
they contain elements which lie between conductors and
insulators.

Transistor semiconductors were invented at Bell Laboratories

in 1947 by scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain, but did not see the day of light until mid-
1950s.

Second generation computers saw advancement in data

input and output procedures. Initially, these processes were
similar to the last models of 1st gen computers. They were
tedious because they involved multiple personnel carrying
punched cards from room to room.
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To speed up the process, the batch system was conjured up
and implemented. It involved collecting multiple data jobs
into multiple punched cards and feeding them into single
magnetic tapes using a fairly smaller and inexpensive
system. The IBM-1401 was one such computer. Processing,
on the other hand, was done using a more powerful system
like the IBM 7094.
When data manipulation was complete, the files were transferred
back to a magnetic tape. To do this efficiently, IBM's operating system
for IBM-7094 system and Fortran Monitor System were used. These
were the harbingers of operating system software to come.

Using a smaller system again, say IBM-1401, the data was printed out
to multiple punch cards as output.

IBM 1401 computer with one circuit card access drawer

opened, on display at the Computer History Museum
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Besides the development of operating systems software, other

commercial applications were also hitting the 'shelves'. This
was probably due to the overall upgrade from restrictive binary
based machine code to languages that wholly supported
symbolic and alphanumeric coding. Programmers could now
write in assemblers and high-level languages like FORTRAN,
COBOL, SNOWBALL, and BASIC in 1964.

Characteristics of 2nd Gen Computers:

 Used transistors
 Faster and more reliable than first generation systems
 Were slightly smaller, cheaper, faster
 Generated heat though a little less
 Still relied on punch cards and printouts for
input/output
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 Allowed assembly and high-level languages
 Stored data in magnetic media
 Were still costly
 Needed air conditioning
 Introduced assembly language and operating system
software.

The early mainframes and supercomputers were just some of

the machines which took advantage of transistors. The
UNIVAC LARC mainframe from Sperry Rand (1960) and IBM-
7030 Stretch supercomputer (1961), and CDC 6600 mainframe
(1963) were examples of these systems.

Other examples of 2nd Gen of computers:

 IBM-7000
 CDC 3000 series
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 UNIVAC 1107
 IBM-7094
 MARK III
 Honeywell 400

Third Computer Generation: 1960 - 1970s

(Integrated Circuits and Multi-Programming)

3rd generation computers used the integrated circuit (IC) microchip

instead of transistors. The semiconductor IC packed a huge number of
transistors, capacitors, diodes and rectifiers onto a single germanium
or silicon. These were then printed on separate parts of a printed
circuit board.

The implementation of these computers was also in line with Moore's

Law (1965), which observed that transistor size was shrinking so fast,
that double the number would fit into new microchips every two
years for 10 years to come.

He readjusted this exponential growth after ten years, to every five

years, in 1975.

The IC sought to solve the cumbersome procedures that went into

designing the transistor circuitry. The manual interconnection of
capacitors, diodes, and rectifiers in transistors was time-consuming
and not completely reliable.
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Integrated circuit on microchip

Jack of Texas Instruments and Robert No of

Fairchild Corporation separately discovered the
benefits of integrated circuits in 1958 and 1959,
respectively. by built his IC onto germanium
whereas No built one onto a silicon chip.
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Be sides the reduction in cost, the speed and performance of any one
computer increased tremendously after placing multiple transistors on a
single chip. Since its invention, the IC speed doubled every two years,
shrinking both the size and cost of computers even further.

The IC circuitry aside, the interaction with computers improved. Instead

of punched cards printouts, keyboards and better input peripherals
were used to input data which were displayed for output through visual
display units.

Characteristics of 3rd Gen Computers

 Used ICs
 Used parallel processing
 Were slightly smaller, cheaper, faster
 Used motherboards
 Data was input using keyboards
 Output was visualized on the monitors
 Used operating systems, thus permitting multitasking
 Simplified programming languages i.e. BASIC.
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Fourth Computer Generation: 1970s to

Present (The Microprocessor, OS and GUI)

The birth of the microprocessor was at the same time the birth of the
microcomputer. It was also in line to fulfill Moore's law which
predicted exponential growth in transistor and microchips starting in
1965. This generation is instrumental in ushering in diverse devices.
The 2nd generation computers which began in 1971 are those in use
today.

Intel, through its engineers Ted Hoff, Federico Fagin and Stan In
November 1971, introduced the world's first single chip
microprocessor, the Intel 4004. It boasted of 2300 transistors and
measured 1/8" by 1/16".

On its own, new microchip was as powerful as The ENIAC computer

from 1946. It also merged most of the functions that charged a
computer like central processing unit, memory, input and output
controls.
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Xerox Alto, arguably the first PC from 1973. It was powered by TI
SN74S181N ALU chip from Texas Instruments

Challenged by the Xerox Alto, serious staff began in 1974

when Intel came up with a general purpose 8-bit
microprocessor it named 8808. It sought for, and asked Gary
Kildall, a consultant, to write an operating system for its new
baby. This led to the disk-based operating system software
known as Control Program for Microcomputers (CPM).
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The original IBM PC in 1981

Remember that both Control Program for Microcomputer

and Disk Operating System were command-line based
operating systems which the user to interface with the
computer using the keyboard.

 U bunt OS
 Mozilla Firefox browser
 Open Office
 My SQL
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 VLC media player

Through the 1980s and 2000s, personal computers, and desktops,

in particular, became commonplace. They were cheap and installed
in offices, schools and homes. Software that ran on these
computers also became readily available for small money or for
free.

Other Examples:

 Desktops
 All-in-one
 Laptops
 Workstations
 Net tops
 Tablets
 Smart phones
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Characteristics of 4th Gen Computers:

They

 Used CPUs which contained thousands of transistors

 Were much smaller and fitted on a desktops, laps and
palms
 Used a mouse
 Were used in networks
 Were cheap
 Had GUI
 Were very fast.
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Fifth Computer Generation: The Present and
the Future:
Fifth generation computing is built on technological advancement
gained in the previous computer generations. The implementation
hopes to improve human and machine interaction by harnessing
human intelligence and taking advantage of the large data that has
accumulated since the dawn of the digital age.

Referred to as computation of the future, it arises from the theory,

concept and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine
learning (ML). AI and ML may not be the same but are used
interchangeably to mean the science of crafting devices and programs
which are intelligent enough to interact with humans, other
computers, the environment, and programs, by mining big data to
achieve set goals.

The proliferation of computing devices with the possibility they can

self-learn, respond and interact in normal and probably different
ways, based on acquired experience and environment, has also given
momentum to the Internet of Things concept.

The initial implementations are now seen on smart home devices

which are meant to automate and integrate activities in the house
though audio/visual devices, and self-drive cars which are already
gracing the roads.

The larger goals in AI is to indulge devices to,

 Understand natural language

 Recognize human speech
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 See the world in three-dimensional perspective
 Play interactive games
 Implement expert input in medical and other complex fields
 Exercise heuristic classification analysis
 Implement neural networks.

Other areas which are geared towards making AI possible are

developments in:

 Quantum computing

 Parallel processing

Ongoing AI projects:

 Virtual personal assistants e.g. Google Now and Brain.

 Smart cars e.g. Tesla's autopilot cars and Google's self-driving

cars.

 News generation tools like Wordsmith are used by Yahoo and

Fox to generate news snippets.

 Computer Aided Diagnosis for detection of cancer.

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