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Unit 3: Computer Hardware and History

Lesson 3.1 The History of the Computer

Last edited 580 days ago by Makiel [Muh-Keel].

The Abacus

One of the earliest computing devices was the Abacus, probably first used in China and then by the early Greek and Roman civilizations. The abacus consists of strings of beads strung on rods, which are mounted on a rectangular frame.

The Leibniz Machine

The Leibniz Machine, named after the German polymath and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, refers to a calculating machine he created in the late 17th century. This machine, also known as the Stepped Reckoner or Staffelwalze, was an early mechanical calculator.

The ENIAC

The ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, holds an important place in the history of computing. It was one of the earliest electronic general-purpose computers made. Here's a bit more about it:

Development and Purpose: ENIAC was developed during World War II and completed in 1945. It was created primarily to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.

Designers: The main designers of the ENIAC were J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania.

Technical Features: The ENIAC was a massive machine, weighing about 30 tons and taking up about 1,800 square feet of space. It contained over 17,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and 6,000 manual switches.

Programming and Operation: Unlike modern computers, ENIAC was programmed by manually setting switches and plugging and unplugging cables. It was a complex and time-consuming process.

First and Second Generation Computers

Vacuum Tubes (1946–1959)

ENIAC emerged in 1946 as a 30-ton machine with 18,000 vacuum tubes. When it was first being used, lights dimmed in sections of Philadelphia.

The first-generation computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory, and they were often enormous in size.

They consumed a great deal of electricity and were expensive to operate.

The were large, had limited storage capacity, were unreliable, and required a lot of maintenance.

They often malfunctioned because of the excessive heat they generated.

Relied on machine languages, the lowest-level programming languages understood by computers. T

They could run one program at a time and it took a long time, sometimes weeks, to set up a different program.

Transistors (1959–1965)

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in the second generation of computers. Transistors were more reliable and economical.

The smaller electronic components in the second generation could maintain two states, “Off” and “On,” represented by the binary digits 0 and 1, respectively.

Over 100 computer programming languages were developed to work with second-generation computers

Third and Fourth Generation Computers

Third Generation: Integrated Circuits (1965–1971)

The invention of integrated circuits enabled the development of computer systems that were cheaper, faster, smaller, and more reliable. Integrated circuits miniaturized transistors and placed them on silicon chips called semiconductors.

First instance of operating systems.

Users interacted with third-generation computers using keyboards and monitors that communicated with the other components of the hardware and operating systems.

Fourth Generation: Microprocessors (1971–Present)

Microprocessors include thousands of integrated circuits on a single silicon chip. They created the fourth generation of computers.

Fourth-generation computers are more reliable than their predecessors, calculate in picoseconds (one trillionth of a second), use high-level languages, and are portable and economical.

First MAC personal computers and IBM personal computers were made.

Several operating systems, such as MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows, were developed during this time period.

Emerging Fifth-Generation Computers

he fifth generation started in the early 1980s when microprocessor chips were able to accommodate tens of millions of electronic components using ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI).

These computers are based on parallel processing (multiple programs running concurrently) and artificial intelligence (AI) software.

Quantum Computing

Quantum Computing is the study of a non-classical model of computation. It is said to be more efficient than modern computing through the use of quantum tunneling.

Quantum computers are expected to reduce power consumption from 100 to 1,000 times and will allow computing to surpass any and all limits that traditional computing has set.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing involves the use of nanoscale (extremely small) tools and nonbiological processes to build structures, devices, and systems at the molecular level.

It is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis, or reaction outcomes determined by the use of mechanical constraints.