[go: up one dir, main page]
Scribd
Upload
89 views9 pages

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS Long Notes

The document provides a history of computers from early mechanical calculating devices like the abacus to modern electronic computers. It discusses key figures like John Napier, Blaise Pascal, and Charles Babbage and their inventions. It also covers milestones like the Difference Engine, Analytic Engine, tabulating machines, Mark I computer, and the five generations of computers.

Uploaded by

Kamila Nawrot-Ayaba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
89 views9 pages

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS Long Notes

The document provides a history of computers from early mechanical calculating devices like the abacus to modern electronic computers. It discusses key figures like John Napier, Blaise Pascal, and Charles Babbage and their inventions. It also covers milestones like the Difference Engine, Analytic Engine, tabulating machines, Mark I computer, and the five generations of computers.

Uploaded by

Kamila Nawrot-Ayaba
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 9

HISTORY

OF
COMPUTERS

Angielski Zawodowy – technik informatyk, technik programista


Piotr Bień (WSiP, Warszawa 2020)
Match the English words with their Polish translations.

a calculation wyliczenie

addition dodawanie

division dzielenie

multiplication mnożenie

a value wartość

an abacus liczydło

a computation obliczenie
John Napier

William Oughtred

Blaise Pascal
stones bones
pebbles an abacus
1. What started automation of machinery in the 18th and 19th century?

Trade, travel, and increase in population.

2. What were the differences between the Difference Engine and the Analytic Engine?

The Difference Engine was a steam-driven calculating machine in the size of a room, which adopted
logarithm tables.

The Analytic Engine, as large as a house and powered by 6 steam engines, had more of general purpose.
It was programmable thanks to the punched card technology of the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard.

3. What did Joseph Marie Jacquard invent?

He invented a power loom that could base its weave (and hence the design on the
fabric) upon a pattern which is automatically read from punched wooden cards.
4. What was the Store and the Mill in the Analytic Engine?

Babbage called the two main parts of his Analytic Engine the Store and the Mill, as both terms are used in
the weaving industry. The Store was where numbers were held and the Mill was where they were
„woven” into new results.
These same parts are called the memory unit and the central processing unit (CPU) in a modern
computer.

5. What did the Hollerith desk include?


It included a card reader which sensed the holes in the cards,
a gear driven mechanism which could count,
and a large wall of dial indicators to display the results of the count.

6. What did Hollerith establish?

The Tabulating Machine Company.


7. What was new in electromechanical computers?

Magnetic storage and vacuum tubes to input data.

8. What was Mark I and what made it special?

A fruit of a partnership between Harvard and IBM in 1944. This was the first programmable digital
computer made in the U.S.

It was not entirely electronic, as it comprised of switches, relays, rotating shafts, and clutches. The
machine weighed 5 tons, incorporated 500 miles of wire, was 8 feet tall and 51 feet long, and had a 50 ft
rotating shaft running its length, turned by a 5 horsepower electric motor, running non-stop for 15 years .
9. How many computer generations are there? What makes them different?

There are five generations.


• First generation computers (1940–1956) were huge in size and very expensive to maintain.
• The second generation computers (1956–1963) had transistors instead of vacuum tubes,
which made them more reliable, much cheaper, smaller and easier to maintain.
• The third generation computers (1964–1971) included integrated circuits.
• The fourth generation computers (1971–2010) used microprocessors or chips.
• The fifth generation computers (2010 – the present) have continued this trend and used the
concept of Artificial intelligence.

You might also like