An Illustrated

History Of The Computer

A Pecha-Kucha Presentation

•Abacus +, -
•300 B.C., Babylon
•Aids in memory
•Pencil overtook it
•Still used in Asia
•Faster than an E-
calculator?
•Napier’s bones (John Napier)
•Scottish mathematician, physicist
•1617, used for 300 years
•Multiplication via addition grid system

467 x 3
= 934
 •1642 Blaise Pascal (age 19)
•The Pascaline – 8-digit addition calculator

•Cheaper • Odometer
•6-digit model
(cars) based
on this
 •The Arithometer (1820)
•Charles Xavier Thomas
(France)
•Four function calculator
•Relied on fixed wheels

•Extremely popular
•Pocket-version
•Used in World War I,
until 1970

• Jacquard's Weaving Machine (1801)

• Weave patterns in cloth and carpets
• Punch card system (input)
• Lead to riots at first
•Difference Engine
•Proposed in 1822
•Charles Babbage (Eng)
•To calculate logarithms
for sea captains
•No time and money
•Didn’t work!

•Analytical Engine
1871
•Unfinished
•Could store
1000 numbers,
50 decimals
• Brain
• Storage
 • Hollerith’s desk •1890 population census,
•Card input reader • 3 years only to finish the
•Dials showed counting
results of count

• 1941, Z3 by Konrad Zuse's

(1910-1995)
•First working programmable
computer
•binary system (1 and 0)
•storage and control sections
•Z1,Z2,Z3,Z4 (formed his own company)
• ENIAC, USA
• Mauchly and Eckert
•Calculate firing tables
for army's cannons.
•20x40' room, 30 tons,
•18,000 vacuum tubes
•74,000 watts of heat

•UNIVAC I, 1951 (Universal Automatic Computer)

•World's 1st commercially available computer
•J. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly (of the ENIAC)
•magnetic tape and cache memory
•Predicted results of 1952 Presidential Elections
•IBM Family of machines
•IBM 7094 (1963)
Scientific computer
•IBM Sys360, 1964 (1,000
orders in 30 days)

•World's first personal

computer (PC), 1975
•Intel 8080 brain
•mail-order, DIY
•Bill Gates dropped
out of University to
program it full-time

US$400
In 1975
 • Apple I, 1976 (4kb RAM)
• Steve Wozniak, Steve
Jobs, US$666.66
• Connected to a TV
•Sold as ready-made

•The Apple II (April, 1977), by Steve Wozniak.

•6502 Motorola processor, 4K to 64K RAM,
•clock speed (1.023 MHz)
•Innovations: Plastic casing, 16 colours,
•BASIC programming language burned in ROM.
 • IBM Personal Computer, 1981
• DOS Operating System (Bill Gates, Microsoft)
• Only monitor and keyboard was IBM’s
• Open Architecture (other manufacturers’
hardware could be used)

•Apple Macintosh
•The first
commercially
successful PC to
use a mouse and
a Graphical User
Interface
 THANK YOU
ANY QUESTIONS?