Brief History and Evolution of Computers-2

Evolution of the Computer

Necessity is the mother of invention. The saying holds true for computers too. Computers were invented because of man’s search for fast and accurate calculating devices.

Basic Pascal invented the first mechanical adding machine in 1642. Later, in the year 1671, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz of Germany invented the first calculator for multiplication. Keyboard machines originated States around 1880 and we use them even today. Around the same period, Herman Hollerith came up with concept of punched cards that were extensively used as input medium in computers even in late 1970s.Machines and calculators made their appearance in Europe and America towards the end of the century.

Charles Babbage, a nineteenth century Professor at Cambridge University, is considered the father of modern digital computers. He had employed a group of clerks for preparing mathematical and statistical tables. Babbage had to spend several hours checking these tables because even utmost care and precautions could not eliminate human errors. Soon he became dissatisfied and exasperated with this type of monotonous job. As a result, he started thinking about building a machine that could compute tables guaranteed to be error-free.

In this process, Babbage designed a “Difference Engine” in the year 1822 that could produce reliable tables. In 1842, Babbage came out with his new idea of a completely automatic Analytical Engine for performing basic arithmetic functions for any mathematical problem at an average speed of 60 additions per minute. Unfortunately, he was unable to produce a working model of this machine because the precision engineering required to manufacture the machine was not available during that period. However, his efforts established a number of principles that are fundamental to the design of any digital computer. In order to have a better idea of the evolution of computers it is worthwhile to discuss of the well-known early computers. These are as follows:

1. The Mark I Computer (1937-44). Also known as Automatic Sequence Controlled calculator, this was the first fully automatic calculating machine designed by Howard A. Aiken of Harvard University in collaboration with IBM (International Business Machines) Corporation. It was an electro-mechanical device (used both electronic and mechanical components) based on the techniques already developed for punched card machines.

Although this machine proved to be extremely reliable, it was very complex in design and huge in size. It used over 3000 electrically actuated switches to control its operations and was approximately feet long and 8 feet high. It was capable of performing five basic arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and table reference on numbers as big as 23 decimal digits. It took approximately 0.3 second to add two numbers and 4.5 seconds for multiplication of two numbers. Obviously, the machine was very slow as compared to today’s computers.

2. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1939-42). Dr. John Atanasoff developed an electronic machine to solve certain mathematical equations. The machine was called the Atanasoff- Berry Computer, or ABC, after its inventor’s name and his assistant, Clifford Berry.

It used 45 vacuum tubes for internal logic and capacitors for storage.            

3. The ENIAC (1943-46). The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator (ENIAC) was the first all electronic computer. It was constructed at the Moore School of Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. by a design team led by Professors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly.

The team developed ENIAC because of military needs. It was used for many years to solve ballistic related problems. It took up wall space in a 20 x 40 square feet room and used 18,000 vacuum tubes it could add two numbers in 200 microseconds and Notes multiply them in 2000 microseconds.

4. The EDVAC (1946-52). A major drawback of ENIAC was that its programs were wired on boards that made it difficult to change the programs. Dr. John Von Neumann later introduced the “stored program” concept that helped in overcoming this problem. The basic idea behind this concept is that a sequence of instructions and data can be stored in the memory of a computer for automatically directing the flow of operations. This feature considerably influenced the development of modern digital computers because of the ease with which different programs can be loaded and executed on the same computer. Due to this feature, we often refer to modern digital computers as stored program digital computers. The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) used the stored’ program concept in its design. Von Neumann also has a share of the credit for introducing the idea of storing both instructions and data in binary form (a system that uses only two digits—0 and I to represent all characters), instead of decimal numbers or human readable words.

5. The EDSAC (1947-49). Almost simultaneously with EDVAC of U.S.A., the Britishers developed the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). The machine executed its first program in May 1949. In this machine, addition operations took 1500 microseconds and multiplication operation: took 4000 microseconds. A group of scientists headed by Professor Maurice Wilkes at the Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory developed this machine.

6. The UNIVAC I (1951). The Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was the first digital computer that was not “one of a kind”. Many UNIVAC machines were produced, the first of which was installed in the Census Bureau in 1951 and was used continuously for 10 years. The first business use of a computer, a UNIVAC I, was by General Electric Corporation in 1954. In 1952, the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation introduced the IBM-701 commercial computer. In rapid succession, improved models of the UNIVAC I and other 700-series machines were introduced. In 1953, IBM produced the IBM-650, and sold over 1000 of these computers. UNIVAC marked the arrival of commercially available digital computers for business and scientific applications.

Some of the well-known early computers are the MARK 1 (1937-44), the ATANASOFF-BERRY (1939-42), the ENIAC (1943-46), the EDVAC (1946–52), the EDSAC (1947-49) and the UNIVAC I (1951).

Computer in India: -

Even though the world got introduced to the computer technology in late forties, India bought its first computer in 1956 for a princely sum of Rs 10 lakh. It was called HEC-2M and was installed at Calcutta’s Indian Statistical Institute. It was nothing more than a number crunching machine and was huge in size. The dimensions of this monster were 10 ft in length, 7 ft in breadth and 6 ft in height. It played a critical role in formulating annual and five-year plans by the planning commission, and in top-secret projects of India’s nuclear program. Moreover, it went on to turn out India’s first generation of computer professionals. It was at least ten thousand times slower in solving even simple problems than today’s machines. But it set the stage for the development of computers in India.

 

Post activity:

In this post we covered how the present computer evolved in detail. If more detailed information is needed please browse or search the internet for above terms. All images are taken either from Google search or Wikipedia web site.

Keywords: Computer, MARK 1 (1937-44), the ATANASOFF-BERRY (1939-42), the ENIAC (1943-46), the EDVAC (1946–52), the EDSAC (1947-49) and the UNIVAC I (1951).

…till next post, bye-bye and take care.

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