EVALUTION OF COMPUTER

The word COMPUTER was first used in a book named as ”The Young Mans Gleanings” written by English writer Richard Braithwait. “I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number” is the line taken from that book which first used the word COMPUTER.

Abacus

Many centuries ago when man started to count the numbers, he thought of a device which can trace the numbers and thus came the existence of ABACUS. It was the first counting device which was developed in China more than 3000 years ago. The name Abacus was obtained from Greek word Abax which means slab. This device basically consists of a rectangular wooden frame and beads

Napier ’s Bones

It is a device which contains a set of rods made of bones. It was developed by John Napier, a Scottish Mathematician and hence the device was named as Napier’s Bones. The device was mainly developed for performing multiplication and division. Later in 1614 he also introduced logarithms

Pascaline

Pascaline is a calculating machine developed by Blaise Pascal, a French Mathematician. It was the first device with an ability to perform additions and subtractions on whole numbers. The device is made up of interlocked cog wheels which contains numbers 0 to 9 on its circumference. When one wheel completes its rotation the other wheel moves by one segment. Pascal patented this device in 1647 and produced it on mass scale and earned a handful of money.

Punched Card System

Punched Card System is used for storing and retrieving data. This was invented by Herman Hollerith, an American Statistician in US Census Bureau. The system stores the data coded in the form of punched holes.

Tabulator

Herman Hollerith also invented Tabulator which was the first step towards programming.

Digital Era

Coming to the digital era, Binary system made its entry into the computer world. 

Transistors

In 1947, Transistors were introduced into the computers. With the introduction of transistors, computations were simpler and faster.