HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS EARLY COUNTING METHOD:
The history of computers can be traced back to early men. The advent of computers or computing has not been an abrupt one, but followed gradually but progressive parts and Pace.
The computer is used widely today are born out of growth of simple counting tools and implements used by the men of the old. The calculations in the olden days were done with the use of the following: fingers, stones, sticks pebbles, cowries or marks on the wall.
they were used primarily to keep record of personal belongings and in the course of the management of human affairs. Some of the items used later give derivation to some of the mathematical jargons we used today. For example:
(a) Finger and teos, also called digit of the hand ( from which the word digits is derived)
(b) Pebbles formally called ' Calculi ' ( from which we got the word calculator).
(c) Grains like maize were used by children who are learning how to add and subtract and that method is still used till today.
PROBLEMS OF THE EARLY COUNTING TOOLS:
However after some years, the above tools used for calculation became absolute and cumbersome to calculate large numbers ranging from 100 to 10000. Problems that arose are as follows:
1. Gathering large numbers of these tools became a problem
2. The tools are heavy and not portable to carry
3. Some of them are relatively scarce
4. Counting large numbers became a problem, as much time were consumed
5. Division of numbers are cumbersome with these methods.
EARLY MANUAL MECHANICAL CALCULATING MACHINES
The problem associated with the early counting tools give rise to the production of early manual calculating machine by Chinese and Egyptians called the Abacus which was most widely used Arithmetic device at that time. The abacus is still used in our Nursery and Primary school for addition and subtraction today.
(a) ABACUS
The abacus is a simple counting device consisting of parallel wire is strong with beads in group of 10. It was developed by the Chinese in the 7th century. It was widely used in ancient Greek, Roman and china for addition and subtraction. Some shopkeepers in China are still using it today.
(b) SLIDE RULE
A slide rule consist of a ruler with a sliding bar along the middle both graduated with similar logarithmic scales with corresponding antilogarithm. Multiplication and division thus became addition and subtraction and can be performed rapidly by reaching the scales. the slide rule was constructed with the principles based on the John Napier's logarithm.
MECHANICAL COUNTING DEVICES OR MACHINES
what was considered as computers in those early years were mostly mechanical machines with one or two functions or operations. This period was referred to as pre electronic computer age. Hence the history of computers is seen in developmental stage. Namely electro mechanical calculating devices and the electronic computer age.
(A) ELECTROMECHANICAL COUNTING DEVICES AND THEIR INVENTORS
1. Napier's Bones ( Logarithm)
in about the year 1614 John Napier a Scottish mathematician invented logarithm. Some years later Napier copied some of his algorithm tables on a set of Ivory rods which became known as in Napier's bones or rods. They were used mechanically to solve multiplication and division problem.
2. The Pascaline ( by Blaise Pascal)
Blaise Pascal a French teenager invented the pascaline in the 1645. Pascal design what was considered to be the first mechanical calculator which was capable of performing simple multiplication and division.
3. STEPPED RECKONER ( by Gottfried Leibniz)
in about 1672 the second mechanical calculator was invented by Gottfried Leibniz a German mathematician. This was an improvement in pascal's calculator in the sense that it could multiply and divide numbers as well as add and subtract.
4. PUNCH CARD LOOM
In 1792 self Marie jacquard invented a device called a punch card loom. Though will not a calculating device, it was a next invention of great importance in the development of computer. This is because the 100m became the spring board of the key punch machine later.
5. CHARLES BABBAGE ANALYTICAL MACHINE
Charles Babbage a Cambridge mathematics professor in the year 1820 built what became the first computer which she called an analytical difference engine.
Due to the fact that Babbage built difference engine and his contribution towards the invention of analytical engine he was called the father of computing.
ELECTRONIC COUNTING DEVICES AND MODERN COMPUTER
The mechanically controlled machine gave was the electronically invented machine. Inventors of this electronic computers were:
1. John W. Mauchly and J. Prester Eckert (1943)
They produced the first electronic numerical integrator and calculator in 1943. use calculator was used in the US army ordnance department which was later used for a ballistic missile research projects. It was a decimal computer not a binary one. The later developed electronic discrete variable automated computer which uses binary numbers 0 and 1 and has internal storage instruction written in digital form.
2. John Von Nuemann Machine and Others
In 1945 he developed the stored program concept in memory which most computer developer depends on today. it Incorporated the binary system paralleled arithmetic and provided basis for subsequent parallel binary computer electronic discrete variable automatic computer.
The invention of these early mechanical and electronic machines give rise to the manufacturing of the present-day computer machines. The manufacturing of the present the modern computer piece started with the discovery of silicon chip in California USA in the early 1940s.
3. Dr. Herman Hollerith Punch Cards ( an American inventor)
Dr. Hollerith punch cards was first used by jacquard for automatic control of a weaving to in 1801. By the end of the 19th century Herman devloped a method of storing and processing census data of 1880 in United States of America.
Dr. Hollerith in 1911 established computing tabulating recording company which became the international Business machine corporation IBM which is the largest computer manufacturing company all over the world.
SUMMARY
In summary we have been able to see how the computer system has seriously evolved. We were able to look at old and ancient means of counting dragging it forward to the recent and modern method of counting. we also looked at several inventors who played major role in the computer evolution.