HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTER

PREAMBLE

Nature has endowed man with spirit of inquisition. That is, searching to know about certain phenomena, that surrounds him and his environment. One of these major problems is counting. Trying to solve his problems, man invented the use of what is known to as computer. For clear and understanding, we are going to divide it into two forms.

1.   Early Aids to Counting

(a) The Fingers & Toes

The early man used his finger trying to solve the basic mathematics problems of additions, subtraction and division etc that face him within his environment.

(b)    Stones

This primitive man later used piles of stones to replace his finger and toes application. He gathered stones of various colours and sizes in trying to solve basic mathematical problems of addition, subtraction, and division etc

                                                                                                                     

  (c)    Abacus

A man called Abacus invented a manual machine or device for mathematics solutions known as abacus. This manual machine made in rectangular form was attached with strings of wires on the. Now, by moving the bead back and the, numbers could be added and subtracted

2.   Modern Mechanical Aids To Counting

In not less than hundred years of manual application, the modern scientist came up with a new device known as calculator.

PASCALINE

A French man known as Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical machine which supported additions, subtractions and division in the year 1642. The machine had a number wheels with teeth on them. The first wheel was counted in units, the second in tens, while the third worked in hundreds, and so on. For a clear understand of this machine, note that any time the first wheel made one complete turn, the second wheel move one position forward. And ten turns of first wheel caused one complete turn on the second wheel. Between 1802 and 1804, a French textile manufacturer, Joseph Jacquards, invented a machine known as JACQUARD CARD of controlling weaving Room leading to woven to the cloth...  He adopted the concept of binary notation to achieve his goal. In further attempt of the search for a more for a more reliable means of computations, Cambridge University Mathematics professor Charles Babbage in the year 1820, develop what is known as difference engine. Its application was grater in mathematics tables. After this he made a serious effort which result in invention of Analytical engine which contains the following features. It served as stronge facilities for Data and instructions, again it as a mechanized unit for calculation, otherwise known as ‘’Mill’’. This machine did not fully consider the problem of handline general purpose computation.

              By 1854, a British Logician called George Boolean Algebra,

Invented a logical machine used in representing and manipulating logical expression. This therefore marked a significant change to our today’s modern digital computer.

Dr. Hennan Holleraith, was an American statistician at the united State Census Bereau. In 1890, He developed what was kwown as Hollerith machine. He used this machine to process information obtained in the population census carried out in the United State of America in 1890.

Hollerith opened a company for easy sale of his machine. He then merged with another company known as international business machine company. During the year 1941, Konrade Zuse, a German, invented what is known as z3 and z4 calculatiing machines. They were based on ELECTRONIC VALVE which were used for all forms of calculations. In the same year was the invented of colossus. This machine was used to erase the secret code used by German to send messages. It contained 1800 valves.

In the year 1946, John Von Neuman, set out the world classic design for a modern digital computer. All these gave birth to what is now called modern digital computer.