Four Basic Periods

of
Computer History
Pre-mechanical Age
Mechanical Age
Electromechanical Age
Electronic Age

Pre-Mechanical Age
(3000B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
Writing and Alphabets
Petroglyths (signs or
simple figures carved in
rock)
Petroglyths
Cave painting from Lascaux, France
(15,000-10,000 B.C.)
Ideographs (symbols to
represent ideas and
concept)
Mayan Ideograph
Cuneiform the first true
written language and the first
real information system. (coo-
nay-eh-form)
Star heaven or God
Cuneiform
At around 2000 BC the Phoenicians
created symbols that expressed
single syllables and consonants
(the first true alphabet)
Greek adopted the Phoenician
alphabet and added vowels
Romans gave the letters Latin
name to create the alphabet we
use today.
Papers and pens
Sumerians stylus and wet clay
Egyptians papyrus plants
(2600 BC)
Chinese made paper from rags
(100 AD)
Stylus and wet clay
Papyrus Plant
Chinese
Books and Libraries
(permanent storage device)
Mesopotamia religious leaders
kept the earliest book
Egyptians kept scrolls
Greeks (600 BC) fold sheets of
Papyrus vertically into leaves and
bind them together.
First Numbering System
Egyptian Vertical lines (|)for numbers 1 9
- U or O 10
- coiled rope 100
- lotus blossom for 1000
Hindus (100 200 AD) 9 digit numbering
875 AD the concept of zero was developed.
The First Calculator
Abacus was mans first recorded
adding machine. Invented in
Babylonia and popularized in China.
Mechanical Age
(1450 1840)
First Information Explosion
Johann Guttenberg Movable metal-
type printing process in 1450.
The first general purpose
computers
John Napier (1614) a Baron of Merchiston,
Scotland invented LOGS (Logarithm).
LOGS allows multiplication and division to
be reduce in addition and subtraction.
1614 Arabian Lattice lays out a special
version of the multiplication tables on a set of
four-sided wooden rods.(multiply, divide large
numbers and find square and cube root)
John Napier
Napiers Bone
Wilhelm Shickard 1623 - (Professor at
University of Tubingen, Germany) invented
the first mechanical calculator that can work
with six digits and can carries digits across
columns.
William Oughtred (1575 1660) invented
the slide rule.

Blaise Pascal (1642) invented the Pascaline.
(made of clock gears and levers) that could
solve mathematical problems like addition and
subtraction.
Gottfried Leibniz (1617) invented Stepped
Reckoner that could multiply 5 digit and 12
digit numbers yielding up to 16 digit numbers.
Stepped Reckoner
Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1801) developed the
automatic loom (weaving loom) that was
controlled by punched cards.
Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar -1820
developed Arithmometer (the first mass
produced calculator)
Charles Babbage invented the difference
engine (1821) and analytical engine (1832).
- Father of modern computer.
Difference Engine
Analytical Engine
Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace Byron
1842 the first computer programmer.
Electromechanical Age
(1840 1940)
The Beginning of Telecommunications
Voltaic Battery first electric battery known
as voltaic pile
- invented by Alessandro Volta
Telegraph
Samuel F.B. Morse conceived of his
version of an Electromagnetic Telegraph
(1832)
Morse Code
Telephone and Radio
Alexander Graham Bell 1879 - developed
the first working telephone.
Guglielmo Marconi 1894 (RADIO)
discovered that electrical waves travel through
space and can produce and effect far from the
point at which it originated.

George Boole 1852 developed
the binary algebra known as Boolean
Algebra
Electromechanical Computing
Pehr and Edward Scheutz 1853 -
completed a Tabulating Machine,
capable of processing fifteen digit
numbers, printing out result and
rounding off to eight digits.
Dorr Felt 1885 devises the comptometer, a
key driven adding and subtracting calculator.
Comptograph containing a built in printer
Comptometer
Comptograph
Herman Hollerith father of information
processing.
Punched Card provided computer
programmers with a new way to put
information into their machines.
He founded the Tabulating Machine Company ,
later became the Computer Tabulating
Recording Company and International
Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
Herman Hollerith
Tabulating Machine
Otto Shweiger 1893 invented the first
efficient four function calculator called
Millionaire.
Lee de Forest 1906 developed vacuum tubes
This is important for it provided electrically
controlled switch.

(1941 present)
Konrad Zuse 1941 built the first
programmable computer called Z3.

Howard Aiken 1942 developed Mark I the
first stored program computer.
John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry 1942
completed the first all electronic computer
called ABC or Atanasoff-Berry Computer
John Atanasoff
Clifford Berry