Brief History of Computer

Computer dates back to time when Abacus was invented, which was used to calculate arithmetic tasks. The earliest analog computer to emerge was in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. According to Derek J. De Solla Price, it was constructed to calculate astronomical positions.

Another emergence was the Napier's Bones, like the abacus it is also a calculating device which was invented in 1617 by John Napier of Merchiston, Scotland. This machine was used for calculating products and quotients of numbers using lattice multiplication method called 'RABDOLOGY'. This machine was the first to use decimal points

Between 1642 and 1644 another device called PASCALINE was built and designed by a french mathematician philosopher Blaise Pascal. His device does only additional and substraction with numbers being entered by manipulating dials. Pascaline is sometimes called Pascal's Calculator which was the first mechanical and automatic calculator as at that time.

As time goes on, a German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz built a Digital Mechanical Calculator around 1672 which he completed in 1694. Gottfried Calculator was referred to the third great calculator inventor of the seventeenth century.

In the early 1820's which was the major emergance of modern computer today. Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine Machine - An automatic mechanical calculator used to solve polynomial functions.

After the Difference Engine, the Analytic Engine which was regarded as mechanical general-purpose computer was design by Charles Babbage also - There he derived the name - Father of Modern Computer. The Analytic engine had a logic unit, control flow and an integrated memory, which is three basic building blocks of all modern computer today. The analytic engine used punch cards for data input.

Since the emergence of Analytic Engine, it then gave rise to other devices.
The Tabulating Machine - an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information stored on punched cards.

A Differential Analyzer - mechanical analog computer used to solve equations by integration. It had vacuum tubes and can do about 25 calculations in minutes.

As technology advances, different computers began to emergence which you will see in the next tutorial on Generations of Computers.