LNCTE BASIC

COMPUTER
ENGINEERING
History of Computer and its Generations

Deepak Kumar
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What is Computer Science?
Computer science (sometimes called computation science or
computing science, but not to be confused with computational
science or software engineering) is the study of processes that
interact with data and that can be represented as data in the
form of programs. It enables the use of algorithms to
manipulate, store, and communicate digital information. A
computer scientist studies the theory of computation and the
practice of designing software systems. Its fields can be divided
into theoretical and practical disciplines. Computational
complexity theory is highly abstract, while computer graphics
emphasizes real-world applications. Programming language
theory considers approaches to the description of computational
processes, while computer programming itself involves the use
of programming languages and complex systems. Human–
computer interaction considers the challenges in making
computers useful, usable, and accessible.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF COMPUTER:

The history of computer dated back to the period of scientific
revolution (i.e. 1543 – 1678). The calculating machine invented
by Blaise Pascal in 1642 and that of Goffried Liebnits marked the
genesis of the application of machine in industry. This
progressed up to the period 1760 – 1830 which was the period of
the industrial revolution in Great Britain where the use of
machine for production altered the British society and the
Western world. During this period Joseph Jacquard invented the
weaving loom (a machine used in textile industry). The

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computer was born not for entertainment or email but out of a
need to solve a serious number-crunching crisis. By 1880, the
United State (U.S) population had grown so large that it took
more than seven years to tabulate the U.S. Census results. The
government sought a faster way to get the job done, giving rise
to punch-card based computers that took up entire rooms.
Today, we carry more computing power on our smart phones
than was available in these early models. The following brief
history of computing is a timeline of how computers evolved
from their humble beginnings to the machines of today that surf
the Internet, play games and stream multimedia in addition to
crunching numbers. The followings are historical events of
computer.
1623: Wilhelm Schickard designed and constructed the first
working mechanical calculator.
1673: Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated a digital mechanical
calculator, called the Stepped Reckoner. He may be considered
the first computer scientist and information theorist, for, among
other reasons, documenting the binary number system
1801: In France, Joseph Marie Jacquard invents a loom that uses
punched wooden cards to automatically weave fabric designs.
Early computers would use similar punch cards. Home / News /
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1820: Thomas de Colmar launched the mechanical calculator
industry when he released his simplified arithmometer, which
was the first calculating machine strong enough and reliable
enough to be used daily in an office environment.
1822: English mathematician Charles Babbage (Father of
Computer) conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that

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would be able to compute tables of numbers. The project,
funded by the English government, is a failure. More than a
century later, however, the world's first computer was actually
built.
1843: During the translation of a French article on the
Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace wrote, in one of the many notes
she included, an algorithm to compute the Bernoulli numbers,
which is considered to be the first published algorithm ever
specifically tailored for implementation on a computer.
1885: Herman Hollerith invented the tabulator, which used
punched cards to process statistical information; eventually his
company became part of IBM.
1890: Herman Hollerith designs a punch card system to
calculate the 1880 census, accomplishing the task in just three
years and saving the government $5 million. He establishes a
company that would ultimately become IBM
1936: Alan Turing presents the notion of a universal machine,
later called the Turing machine, capable of computing anything
that is computable. The central concept of the modern computer
was based on his ideas.
1937: J.V. Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at
Iowa State University, attempts to build the first computer
without gears, cams, belts or shafts.
1937: One hundred years after Babbage's impossible dream,
Howard Aiken convinced IBM, which was making all kinds of
punched card equipment and was also in the calculator business
to develop his giant programmable calculator, the
ASCC/Harvard Mark I, based on Babbage's Analytical Engine,
which itself used cards and a central computing unit. When the

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machine was finished, some hailed it as "Babbage's dream come
true".
1939: Hewlett-Packard is founded by David Packard and Bill
Hewlett in a Palo Alto, California, garage, according to the
Computer History Museum
1941: Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, design
a computer that can solve 29 equations simultaneously. This
marks the first time a computer is able to store information on
its main memory
1943-1944: Two University of Pennsylvania professors, John
Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, build the Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). Considered the grandfather
of digital computers, it fills a 20-foot by 40-foot room and has
18,000 vacuum tubes
1946: Mauchly and Presper leave the University of Pennsylvania
and receive funding from the Census Bureau to build the
UNIVAC, the first commercial computer for business and
government applications.
1947: William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of
Bell Laboratories invent the transistor. They discovered how to
make an electric switch with solid materials and no need for a
vacuume UNIVAC, the first commercial computer for business
and government applications.
1953: Grace Hopper develops the first computer language,
which eventually becomes known as COBOL. Thomas Johnson
Watson Jr., son of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson Watson Sr.,
conceives the IBM 701 EDPM to help the United Nations keep
tabs on Korea during the war.

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1954: The FORTRAN programming language, an acronym for
formula Translation, is developed by a team of programmers at
IBM led by John Backus, according to the University of Michigan.
1958: Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit,
known as the computer chip. Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 2000 for his work
1964: Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern
computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI).
This marks the evolution of the computer from a specialized
machine for scientists and mathematicians to technology that is
more accessible to the general public.
1969: A group of developers at Bell Labs produce UNIX, an
operating system that addressed compatibility issues. Written in
the C programming language, 7 UNIX was portable across
multiple platforms and became the operating system of choice
among mainframes at large companies and government entities.
Due to the slow nature of the system, it never quite gained
traction among home PC users.
1970: The newly formed Intel unveils the Intel 1103, the first
Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip
1971: Alan Shugart leads a team of IBM engineers who invent
the "floppy disk," allowing data to be shared among computers.
1973: Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox,
develops Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other
hardware.
1974 -1977: A number of personal computers hit the market,
including Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, Radio Shack's TRS-
80 — affectionately known as the "Trash 80" — and the
Commodore PET.

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1975: The January issue of Popular Electronics magazine
features the Altair 8080, described as the "world's first
minicomputer kit to rival commercial models." Two "computer
geeks," Paul Allen and Bill Gates, offer to write software for the
Altair, using the new Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction
Code (BASIC) language. On April 4, after the success of this first
endeavor, the two childhood friends form their own software
company, Microsoft.
1976: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers on
April Fool's Day and roll out the Apple I, the first computer with
a single-circuit board, according to Stanford University.
1977: Radio Shack's initial production run of the TRS-80 was
just 3,000. It sold like crazy. For the first time, non-geeks could
write programs and make a computer do what they wished.
1977: Jobs and Wozniak incorporate Apple and show the Apple II
at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It offers color graphics
and incorporates an audio cassette drive for storage.
1978: Accountants rejoice at the introduction of VisiCalc, the
first computerized spreadsheet program.
1979: Word processing becomes a reality as Micropro
International releases WordStar. "The defining change was to
add margins and word wrap," said creator Rob Barnaby in email
to Mike Petrie in 2000. "Additional changes included getting rid
of command mode and adding a print function. I was the
technical brains — I figured out how to do it, and did it, and
documented it. "The first IBM personal computer, introduced on
Aug. 12, 1981, used the MS DOS operating system. (Image: ©
IBM).
1981: The first IBM personal computer, code-named "Acorn," is
introduced. It uses Microsoft's MSDOS operating system. It has
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an Intel chip, two floppy disks and an optional colour monitor.
Sears & Roebuck and Computer land sell the machines, marking
the first time a computer is available through outside
distributors. It also popularizes the term PC
1983: Apple's Lisa is the first personal computer with a
graphical user interface (GUI). It also features a drop-down
menu and icons. It flops but eventually evolves into the
Macintosh. The Gavilan SC is the first portable computer with
the familiar flip form factor and the first to be marketed as a
"laptop." The TRS 80, introduced in 1977, was one of the first
machines whose documentation was intended for non-geeks
(Image: © Radioshack)
1985: Microsoft announces Windows, according to Encyclopedia
Britannica. This was the company's response to Apple's
graphical user interface (GUI). Commodore unveils the Amiga
1000, which features advanced audio and video capabilities.
1985: The first dot-com domain name is registered on March 15,
years before the World Wide Web would mark the formal
beginning of Internet history. The Symbolics Computer
Company, a small Massachusetts computer manufacturer,
registers Symbolics.com. More than two years later, only 100
dot-coms had been registered.
1986: Compaq brings the “Deskpro 386” to market. Its 32-bit
architecture provides as speed comparable to mainframes.

1990: Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy

physics laboratory in Geneva, develops Hyper Text Markup
Language (HTML), giving rise to the World Wide Web.

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1993: The Pentium microprocessor advances the use of graphics
and music on PCs.
1994: PCs become gaming machines as "Command & Conquer,"
"Alone in the Dark 2," "Theme Park," "Magic Carpet," "Descent"
and "Little Big Adventure" are among the games to hit the
market.
1996: Sergey Brin and Larry Page develop the Google search
engine at Stanford University.
1997: Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple, which was
struggling at the time, ending Apple's court case against
Microsoft in which it alleged that Microsoft copied the "look and
feel" of its operating system.
1999: The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language
and users begin connecting to the Internet without wires.
2001: Apple unveils the Mac OS X operating system, which
provides protected memory architecture and pre-emptive multi-
tasking, among other benefits. Not 10 to be outdone, Microsoft
rolls out Windows XP, which has a significantly redesigned
graphical user interface GUI.
2003: The first 64-bit processor, AMD's Athlon 64, becomes
available to the consumer market.
2004: Mozilla's Firefox 1.0 challenges Microsoft's Internet
Explorer, the dominant Web browser. Facebook, a social
networking site, launches.
2005: YouTube, a video sharing service, is founded. Google
acquires Android, a Linux-based mobile phone operating system.
2006: Apple introduces the MacBook Pro, its first Intel-based,
dual-core mobile computer, as well as an Intel-based iMac.
Nintendo's Wii game console hits the market.
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2007: The iPhone brings many computer functions to the smart
phone.
2009: Microsoft launches Windows 7, which offers the ability to
pin applications to the taskbar and advances in touch and
handwriting recognition, among other features.
2010: Apple unveils the iPad, changing the way consumers view
media and jumpstarting the dormant tablet computer segment.
2011: Google releases the Chromebook, a laptop that runs the
Google Chrome OS.
2012: Facebook gains 1 billion users on October 4.
2015: Apple releases the Apple Watch. Microsoft releases
Windows 10.
2016: The first reprogrammable quantum computer was
created. "Until now, there hasn't been any quantum-computing
platform that had the capability to program new algorithms into
their system. They're usually each tailored to 11 attack a
particular algorithm," said study lead author Shantanu Debnath,
a quantum physicist and optical engineer at the University of
Maryland, College Park.
2017: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
is developing a new "Molecular Informatics" program that uses
molecules as computers. "Chemistry offers a rich set of
properties that we may be able to harness for rapid, scalable
information storage and processing," Anne Fischer, program
manager in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office, said in a
statement. "Millions of molecules exist, and each molecule has a
unique three-dimensional atomic structure as well as variables
such as shape, size, or even color. This richness provides a vast
design space for exploring novel and multi-value ways to encode

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and process data beyond the 0s and 1s of current logic-based,
digital architectures." [Computers of the Future May Be
Minuscule Molecular Machines]. The history of computer is
considered with the generations of a computer from first
generation to fifth generation. In 19th century English
mathematics professor name Charles Babbage referred as a
“Father of Computer”. He designed the Analytical Engine and it
was this design that the basic framework of the computers of
today are based on. Generally speaking, computers can be
classified into five generations. Each generation lasted for a
certain period of time and each gave us either a new and
improved computer or an improvement to the existing
computer.

First Generation of Computer (1937 – 1946):

In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr.
John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff-
Berry Computer 12 (ABC). In 1943 an electronic computer name
the Colossus was built for the military. Other developments
continued until in 1946 the first general– purpose digital
computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator
(ENIAC) was built. It is said that this computer weighed 30 tons,
and had 18,000 vacuum tubes which was used for processing.
When this computer was turned on for the first time lights dim
in sections of Philadelphia. Computers of this generation could
only perform single task, and they had no operating system.
Characteristics:
i. Sizes of these computers were as large as the size of a room.
ii. Possession of Vacuum Tubes to perform calculation.
iii. They used an internally stored instruction called program.

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iv. Use capacitors to store binary data and information.
v. They use punched card for communication of input and output data
and information
vi. They generated a lot of heat.
vii. They have about One Thousand 1000 circuits per cubic foot.
Examples:
i. Mark I developed by Aiken in 1944.
ii. Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) built at the
Moore School for Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania in 1946
by J. Presper Eckert and William Mauchley.
iii. Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) also
developed in 1947 by Eckert and Mauchley.

Second Generation of Computer (1947 –

1962):
Second generation of computers used transistors instead of vacuum tubes
which were more reliable. In 1951 the first computer for commercial use
was introduced to the public; the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC
1). In 1953 the International Business Machine (IBM) 650 and 700 series
computers made their mark in the computer world. During this
generation of computers over 100 computer programming languages
were developed, computers had memory and operating systems. Storage
media such as tape and disk were in use also were printers for output

Characteristics:
i. The computers were still large, but smaller than the first generation of
computers.
ii. They use transistor in place of Vacuum Tubes to perform calculation.
iii. They were produced at a reduced cost compared to the first
generation of computers.

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iv. Possession of magnetic tapes as for data storage.
v. They were using punch cards as input and output of data and
information. The use of keyboard as an input device was also introduced.
vi. These computers were still generating a lot of heat in which an air
conditioner is needed to maintain a cold temperature.
vii. They have about one thousand circuits per cubic foot.

Example:
i. Leprechaun, IBM built by Bell Laboratories in 1947
ii. Transis produced by philco, GE and RCA.
iii. UNIVAC 1107, UNIVAC III.
iv. RCA 501.14
v. IBM 7030 stretch.

Third Generation of Computer (1963 –

1975):
The invention of integrated circuit brought us the third generation of
computers. With this invention computers became smaller, more
powerful more reliable and they are able to run many different programs
at the same time.

Characteristics:
1. They used large-scale integrated circuits, which were used for
both data processing and storage.
2. Computers were miniaturized, that is, they were reduced in size
compared to previous generation.
3. Keyboard and mouse were used for input while the monitor was
used as output device.
4. Use of programming language like COBOL and FORTRAN were
developed.
5. They have hundred thousand circuits per cubic foot.

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Examples:
i. Burroughs 6700, Mini computers
ii. Honeywell 200
iii. IBM system 360
iv. UNIVAC 9000 series

Fourth Generation of Computer (PC 1975

– 1980)
At this time of technological development, the size of computer was
re divided to what we called Personal Computers, PC. This was the time
the first Microprocessor was created by Intel. The microprocessor was a
very large scale, that is, VLS integrated circuit which contained
thousands of transistors. 15 Transistors on one chip were capable
performing all the functions of a computer’s central processing unit

Characteristics:
i. Possession of microprocessor which performs all the task of a computer
system use today.
ii. The size of computers and cost was reduced.
iii. Increase in speed of computers.
iv. Very large scale (VLS) integrated circuits were used.
v. They have millions of circuits per cubic foot.

Examples:
i. IBM system 3090, IBM RISC6000, IBM RT.
ii. ILLIAC IV.
iii. Cray 2 XMP.
iv. HP 9000.
v. Apple Computers.

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Fifth Generation of Computers (Present
and Beyond):
Fifth generations computing devices, based on artificial intelligence (AI)
are still in development, although there are some application such as
voice recognition, facial face detector and thumb print that are used
today

Characteristics:
i. Consist of extremely large scale integration.
ii. Parallel processing.
iii. Possession of high speed logic and memory chip.
iv. High performance, micro-miniaturization.16
v. Ability of computers to mimic human intelligence, e.g. voice
recognition, facial face detector, thumb print.
vi. Satellite links, virtual reality. vii. They have billions of circuits per
cubic.

Examples:
i. Super computers
ii. Robots
iii. Facial face detector
iv. Thumb print.

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