The History of Computers

By fudgemonkey

  • Blaise Pascal

    Blaise Pascal
    This mathematician and philosopher from France invented the first digital calculator with the help of his father, a tax collector. He worked on it between the years of 1642-1645.

  • Stepped Reckoner

    Stepped Reckoner
    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz built the Stepped Reckoner. It could add, subtract, multipy, and divide. A working model of Leibnitz's invention did not come out until 1791, after he passed away.

  • Charles Babbage

    Charles Babbage
    Charles Babbage was known as the father of computers. He invented the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine. an interesting fact about Babbage, He also invented the cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard railroad gauge, and other usefull inventions of his time.

  • Jacquards Loom (Punched Cards)

    Jacquards Loom (Punched Cards)
    Joseph-Marie Jacquardas was a weaver. One day, he do becided to build a punch card controled loom. these holes were punched to control a pattern in order to weave things. His invention also provided a model for the input and output of data. This was used in the electro-mechanical and electronic computing industry.

  • Herman Hollerith's Census Tabulating Machine

    Hollerith designed and built the Census Counting Machine. He Punched cards to collect the census data. The cards were fed into a sorting machine before being read by the census counting machine which recorded and tabulated the results. Hollerith was the first American associated with the history of computers.

  • Vacuum tubes (1st Generration Computers)

    Vacuum tubes (1st Generration Computers)
    A vacuum-tube is a direct-current amplifier capable of measuring currents. They were first invented by John Ambrose Fleming.

  • Dr. Grace Murray Hopper

    Dr. Grace Murray Hopper
    Dr. Grace Murray Hopper worked with Howard Aiken from 1944 and used his machine for gunnery and ballistics calculation. A program error in a computer has been called a bug because a moth was found blocking one of the relays.

  • The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

    The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)
    The ABC was the first electronic digital computer ever invented. The ABC was a digital computer because it processed data in digital units. It used the base 2 number system.

  • Harvard's Mark I

    Harvard's Mark I
    Howard Aiken built the ASCC computer (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator). mechanical relays (switches) thatflip-flopped back and forth (to represent mathematical data) were located on the computer. The machaine weighed some 35 tons with 500 miles of wiring.

  • The ENICA

    The ENICA
    John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert designed and built the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). This machine was suposed to be used to calculate the trajectories for the guns of World War II. Unfortunatly, It wasmt finished in time for that.

  • Transistor (2nd Generation Computer)

    Transistor (2nd Generation Computer)
    Transistors are the active components of microchips which often contain small devices. Transistors have become the nerve cells of the Information Age because they are inbedded in almost everything electronic. I was invented by William B. Shockley.

  • Integrated Cirtuit

    Integrated Cirtuit
    The Integrated Circuit is an assembly of electronic components. It was invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. They made it by laying very thin paths of metal directly on the same piece of material as their devices.This made the circuits integrated.

  • First Computer game

    First Computer game
    In 1962, Steve Russell invented the first computer game by using the MIT mainframe technology. The name of the game was called Space War.

  • Lady Agusta Ada Countess of Lovelace

    Lady Agusta Ada Countess of Lovelace
    Lady Agusta Ada Countess of Lovelace is known as the first computer programer. She was a mathmatisian that helped Babbage in his work. She wrote programs for Babbage's machines.

  • Microsoft

    Microsoft
    The program, Microsoft was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

  • Microprocessor

    Microprocessor
    The miroprocessor is a silicon chip less than 0.2 inch squared. Snce microprocessors were so expencive to make, Computer engieners were not able to make a micr computer. The microprocessor permitted the development of intelligent terminals such as things like automatic tellers.

  • Laptop

    Laptop
    The ' Osborne 1', or fist portable computer(Laptop), was invented by Adam Osborne.

  • THe First Webcam

    THe First Webcam
    At the University of Cambridge, some people in the computer labs created the first webcam inorder to inspect a coffe pot in the teacher's lounge/ break room.

  • Google

    Google
    A very popular search tool called Google was invented by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.