-
The Pascaline
In 1642, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the pascaline. It had eight movable dials on wheels and could calulate sums up to eight figures long. It could only perform only addition and subtraction operations just like a abacus. -
Designing The Two Calculating Machines
Charles Babbage, and English mathematician and physical scientist, designed two calculating machines- the difference engine and the analytical engine. The difference engine could perform complex operations such as squaring numbers automatically. The analytical engine's design included input device, data storage, a control unit that allowed processing instructions in any sequence, and output devices. The designs remained in the blueprint stage. -
Helping the U.S. Census
The U.S. Census officials needed help in accurately tabulating the census. Herman Hollerith invented a calculating machine that ran on electricity and used punched cards to store data. The machine was immensely successful. Hollerith founded th Tabulating Machine Company, which later became the computer and technology corporation known as IBM. -
The Mark I
Built by IBM and Harvard University under the leadership of Howard Aiken. The punched cards were used to feed data into the machine. The machine was 52 feet long, weighed 50 tons, and had 750,000 parts. -
The ENIAC
The University of Pennsylvania built the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC), which contained 18,00 cacuum tubes and weighed some 30 tons. -
John von Neumann
The computers that we know today use the design rules given by John von Neumann. It included components such as an arithmetic logic unit, a control unit, memory, and imput/output devices. Also, his computer design makes it possible to store the programming instructions and the data in the same memory space. -
UNIVAC
the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was built and sold to the U.S. Census Bureau. -
Integrated Circuits
Transistors were replaced by tiny integrated circuits, or "chips." Chips are smaller and cheaper than transistors and can contain thousands of circuits on a single chip. They also give computers tremendous processing speed. -
The Microprocessor
An entire CPU on a single chip was invented. -
Miracle In A Garage
Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs designed and built the first Apple computer in their garage. -
Introducing its first PC
IBM introduced its personal computer. -
Cheaper PC's
Clones of the IBM PC made the personal computer even more affordable. -
IBM PC's now in stores!
By the mid-1990s, people from many walks of life were able to afford these personal computers.
