History of Computer

History of Computer are primarily used for enumeration. Let us see how and when the tools for calculations were invented and what were their types.

Abacus

First of all calculation tool abacus was invented in China in the sixteenth century. it was a rectangular wooden frame. one rod was fixed in the middle of this frame in such a manner that the right portion was longer than the left portion.

 

In this frame, there was a wire running from the left corner to its right corner and passing through the middle rod. there were few beads on this wire.

There were 5 beads in each line of the longer portion of the Chinese abacus frame and the value of each bead was 1. the left portion of the middle rod was shorter, where there were 2. beads in each line and the value of each bead was 5. whatever number was required beads of that value were slid and dragged towards the middle rod. lines in descending order (from top to bottom) represented in order - unit, tens, hundred, and thousand.

For example, if you want to represent the number 765084 on the abacus, then slide one bead whose value is 5 from the left side of the line representing lakh and two beads from the right side whose value is 1 and drag them near the middle rod. in this way 7 lakh will be represented. now for writing 6, slide 1 bead whose value 5 from the left side of the line represents ten thousand and 1 bead from the right side whose value is 1, and drag them near the middle rod. because the hundredth digit is 0, therefore no bead of this line will be taken near to the rod.

For writing 8 at the tenth place, slide one bead from the left side and 3 beads from the right side (5+1+1+1=8) and drag them up to the middle rod, in the end, to write 4 at the unit place, drag 4 beads from right side to the middle rod. in this way requisite number will be represented on the abacus. the longer part of the abacus is called earth and the shorter part is called heaven.

Apart from china abacus was also used in Japan and Russia.

abacus made in japan was almost like the Chinese one. the only difference was beads to the left. in the Chinese abacus, there were 2 beads but in Japanese, there was only one bead.

The values and the counting process of the remaining beads were the same.

the abacus made in Russia did not have a middle rod and there used to be 10 beads in each line. the value of each bead was 1 and counting was done by moving them to any side of the frame.

above three types of abacus were first of all used for counting. after them, new tools for enumeration were invented.

Napier's Bones

in 1617, sir john Napier, a mathematician of Scotland thought of an idea which was named 'Napier's bones. there were 11 rods in this concept that were made of animal bones. this concept was used for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

after some time odometer was discovered, which is now known as a 'speedometer'. it was also useful in calculations, this process is still in use to count the number of loops used in coil binding of motors, etc.

Slide Rule

The slide rule device was invented in 1620 in Germany. the honor of its discovery goes to William Otored. this concept is based on logarithm.

 

Concept of Blaise Pascal

a mathematician and psychologist of France, Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical theory in 1645. at the age of 18, pascal discovered the theory to help his father in calculations. Blaise pascal's father was a tax official at ryen and had a lot of pressure. to complete it he labored hard and worked till the wee hours. pascal then decided to help his father and started making the mechanical calculating concept/device. finally, after 2 years of effort, the device/machine came into the existence.

the device had gear and the wheel had digits from 0 to 9. when one wheel completed the circle the next wheel shifted one place. this machine was manufactured and sold on a large scale and was known worldwide as an innovative gadget.

in 1671, a general mathematician Gottfried Leibniz developed the concept of pascal and discovered a computer machine with levers and wheels. the specialty of this machine was that it was able to divide and multiply as well.

in 1802, Joseph mary jacquard, who worked in the textile industry in France discovered a machine to count the threads of clothes easily.

this machine comprised of some cards which had holes in them. the threads of yarn were passed through the holes and thus it was possible to count the number of threads used in weaving the cloth. joseph jacquard developed punch cards on this basis which contained 40, 80, and 96 divisions. various letters were in it. in this manner, punch cards were also used to collect information.

analytical & differential engine

in the 19th century, Charles Babbage invented a theory of calculation or calculating device, which is known as the earliest model of the modern computer. that's why Charles Babbage is called the father of mathematics at Cambridge University. Charles Babbage who was a lecturer of mathematics at Cambridge University invented this machine called a differential engine. this machine helped in trigonometry and logarithm routine work. the effect of the differential engine was up to the 20th position of the decimal. after this Charles Babbage discovered the analytical engine, in which a punch card was used to store memory. it means, that Charles Babbage invented the computer 100 years back, and it's the improved version we are using now.

in 1880, dr Herman Hollerith of the united states of America, who himself worked in the census department, collected all the data from the department and completed the work through this theory. the calculation becomes easier after feeding the data to a punch computer. in this way, punch card computers were used earlier.

mark-I

at that time all calculating machines were based on mechanical processes. in 1930, an American company IBM suggested Howard Akins produce an electric computer. in 1948, the mark-I computer was made by Howard Akins. now it was possible to do addition, and subtraction, which took 5 seconds time to multiply 20-digit numbers. this computer was the fastest computer made till that time. it produced a lot of noise.

when this model of computer stopped working, it was next to impossible to mend it because its circuit had lots of wires and switches. at that time electronic circuits were not invented and this was totally the electric computer.