History And Generation Of Computers Flashcards
Fingers or Pebbles
In the beginning, when the task was simply counting or adding
Abacus
People in Asia Minor built this
allowed users to do calculations using a system of sliding beads arranged on a rack
Napier’s Bones
manual calculating device using strips of ivory or other types of material that are divided into sections.
for quickly finding quotients and products of numbers.
Napier’s Bones Components
marked with numbers or digits and are used primarily for multiplication and division.
Napier’s Bones Origins
In Lattice Multiplication
Inventor of Napier’s Bones
John Napier
Napier’s Bones Publication Date
1617
Slide Rule
A device consisting of graduated scales capable of relative movement, by means of which simple calculations may be carried out mechanically.
Slide Rule Components
contain scales for multiplying, dividing, and extracting square roots, and some also contain scales for calculating trigonometric functions and logarithms.
Gunter’s Scale (the gunter)
Earliest known logarithmic rule
Aided in nautical calculations
Gunter’s Scale inventor
Edmun Gunter (1581-1626), English Mathematician
William Outred
English Mathematician
Designed first adjustable logarithmic rule (circular)
Designed first linear slide rule
Robert Bissaker
English instrument-maker
Invented the familiar inner sliding rule in 1654
Pascaline
Also called Arithmetic machine, the first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used.
Could only do addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its dials.
First business machine too (if one does not count the abacus)
Pascaline inventor
1642, French Mathematician, Blaise Pascal
invented the machine for his father, a tax collector
Stepped Reckoner
expanded on the French mathematician- philosopher Blaise Pascal’s ideas and did multiplication by repeated addition and shifting.
Stepped Reckoner inventor
designed (1671) and built (1673) by the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz.
Difference Engine
an early calculating machine, verging on being the first computer
A digital device
Difference Engine Components
operated on discrete digits rather than smooth quantities, and the digits were decimal (0–9), represented by positions on toothed wheels
rather than the binary digits (“bits”) that the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz had favoured (but did not use) in his Step Reckoner.
Difference Engine inventor
designed and partially built during the 1820s and ’30s by Charles Babbage, an English Mathematician
Jacquard Loom also called
Jacquard attachment/mechanism
Jacquard Loom components
in weaving, device incorporated in special looms to control individual warp yarns. It enabled looms to produce fabrics having intricate woven patterns such as tapestry, brocade, and damask, and it has also been adapted to the production of patterned knitted fabrics.
improved on the punched-card technology of Jacques de Vaucanson’s loom (1745).
Jacquard System inventor
developed in 1804–05 by Joseph-Marie Jacquard of France
Jacquard System
improved on the punched-card technology of Jacques de Vaucanson’s loom (1745).
Herman Hollerith in 1889
worked for us census bureau, also applied the Jacquard loom concept to computing.
Atanasoff-Berry Computer
first electronic digital computer
Atanasoff-Berry Computer inventor
John V. Atanasoff, American mathematician and physicist
Constructed from 1939-1942
Assistance of his graduate student Clifford E. Berry
Konrad Zuse
German engineer acting in virtual isolation
completed construction in 1941 of the first operational program-controlled calculating machine.
Harvard Mark 1
early protocomputer, built during World War II in the United States.
used relays and electromagnetic components to replace mechanical components.
Hardvard Mark 1 Inventor
built as a partnership between Harvard Aiken and IBM in 1944
Plans for Mark Series
Starting in 1937, detailed plans of a series of four calculating machines of increasing sophistication, based on different technologies, from the largely mechanical Mark I to the electronic Mark IV
ENIAC meaning
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
ENIAC
first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer, built during World War II by the United States
Designed specifically for computing values for artillery range tables, it lacked some features
ENIAC Components
It used plugboards for communicating instructions to the machine; this had the advantage that, once the instructions were thus “programmed,” the machine ran at electronic speed.
ENIAC inventor
Developed in 1946 by John Eckart and John Mauchy
EDVAC meaning
electronic discrete variable automatic computer
EDVAC
first electronic computer to use the stored program concept introduced by John von Neumann.
EDVAC Concept
The concept of a stored-program computer was introduced in the mid-1940s, and the idea of storing instruction codes as well as data in an electrically alterable memory was implemented in EDVAC
EDSAC meaning
Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator
EDSAC
the first full-size stored- program computer
used mercury delay lines for memory and vacuum tubes for logic.
EDSAC inventor
built at the University of Cambridge, by Maurice Wilkes and others to provide a formal computing service for users.
EDSAC Concept
built according to the von Neumann machine principles enunciated by the Hungarian American scientist John von Neumann and, like the Manchester Mark I, became operational in 1949.
built the machine chiefly to study computer programming issues, which he realized would become as important as the hardware details.
UNIVAC meaning
Universal Automatic Computer
UNIVAC
One of the earliest commercial computers
Marked the real beginning of the computer era
could read 7,200 decimal digits per second (it did not use binary numbers), making it by far the fastest business machine yet built.
UNIVAC concept
designed as a commercial data-processing computer, intended to replace the punched-card accounting machines of the day.
