History of Computers In the beginning

The history of the invention of devices to assist with calculations is extremely significant and many books have been written on the subject. Some of the key elements in the history of computers are described below for interest and to help give some meaning to the device that has become a major part of our working and personal lives known as a PC – the Personal Computer.

In human history, devices for assisting calculations can be dated back to 35,000 BCE (Before Common Era – replaces BC). These devices were given the title of Tally Sticks, which had markings used for counting. By 18,000 BCE pre-historic man had advanced to using bones and making the markings in groups.

Key Inventions towards the Modern Computer

The following table summaries the inventions that lead to the modern computer.

Year	Achievement
2400 BCE	Babylonians invented the Abacus – the first known calculator. The Abacus made possible, the first mathematical calculations.
200 BCE	Chinese version of the Abacus known as a Saunpan. Chinese Mathematicians were the first to use negative numbers.
87 BCE	Greeks invented a geared mechanical device for tracking the relative position of stars. This device is acknowledged as the first analogue computer.
60 CE	Egyptians invented a machine capable of Sequence Control that followed a series of instructions in a deterministic fashion. This was essentially the first computer program. (CE is Common Era – replaces AD)
1206	Mesopotamians developed technological innovations that lead to the first scientific design for a programmable human, i.e. a Robot.
1623	Germany built the first discrete automatic calculator called a Calculating Clock. This device essentially began the computing era.
1842	Englishman, Charles Babbage started designing the Analytical Engine with a program stored on Read-Only Memory (the first ROM) in the form of punch cards capable of operating with 40-digit numbers. It had a memory capable of storing 1000 50-digit numbers accessed by a card reader. Although the machine’s design developed further it was never built. However, in 1989 a team from the London's Science Museum using the original plans and tolerances no better than what was capable in the mid-1800’s, built the machine and it worked. The original designs (from 1871) also included a printer that was built in 2000.
1938 -1945	German, Konard Zuse completed the "Z1", the first mechanical binary programmable computer. And it had most of the basic ingredients of modern computers. (It was originally called the "V1" but renamed after the war to avoid confusion with the buzz-bomb.) Konard Zuse founds the world’s first computer company, completes the Z3, the first operational programmable computer, completes the S1, the first process computer for measuring aircraft wing surfaces and develops Plankalkül, the first higher-level programming language.
1944	Harvard and IBM built the first programmable digital computer called the Harvard Mark I. One of the primary programmers for the Mark I was a woman, Grace Hopper. Hopper found the first computer "bug": a dead moth that had gotten into the Mark I and whose wings were blocking the reading of the holes in the paper tape. The word "bug" had been used to describe a defect since at least 1889 but Hopper is credited with coining the word "debugging" to describe the work to eliminate program faults.
1946	The first totally electronic, valve driven, digital, computer called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). This computer weighed 30 tones, contained 18,000 electronic valves, consuming around 160kW of electrical power. It could process 50,000 basic calculations a second and was used for calculating ballistic trajectories and testing theories behind the hydrogen bomb.
1949	CSIR Mk I, Australia's first computer, ran its first test program. This was a vacuum tube based electronic general-purpose computer. Its main memory stored data as a series of acoustic pulses in 5-foot long tubes filled with mercury.
1951	J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly designed and built the first commercially successful electronic computer called the UNIVAC. This was a general purpose computer designed to handle both numeric and textual information. It used magnetic tape for input and is regarded as the real beginning of the computer era. Whirlpool built the first real time interactive computer with a keyboard and monitor.
1953	University of Manchester built the first transistorised computer. The transistor was invented by William Shockley at Bell in 1947.
1958	Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce (Intel founder) at Texas Instruments invented theIntegrated Circuit. Wesley Clark developed the prototype for what became the world’s first Personal Computer. Steve Russell developed the first computer game where competing players fired at each other’s space ships using an early version of joystick.
1963	Douglas Engelhard developed the Mouse, which wasn’t used seriously until about 20 years later. The first pointing devices had the cable attached to the rear resembling the tail of a mouse.
1964	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) installed the first use of a network with a central computer and email.
1969	ARPANET started by the United States Department of Defense. This was the beginning of the Internet, which became open for non-military use in the late 1970s. Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web for compatibility of all types of computers across the Internet in 1989.
1971	Ray Tomlinson develops the first program that can send email messages between computers. The Altair 8800, the first PC, came in a kit and didn’t include the case.
1975	Bill Gates and Paul Allen implemented BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) in the MITS Altair microcomputer – the first true PC. Microsoft was founded later the same year.
1976	Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computers with the introduction of the Apple I, which was sold as a do-it-yourself kit.
1977	Apple Computers introduces the Apple II with open architecture, color graphics and the first business world application – a spreadsheet program called VisiCalc.
1978	Intel introduced the 8086 16 bit microprocessor, the basis of the PCs we know today.
1981	IBM releases the IBM-PC compatible computer with Hard disk drives became a standard component in 1983. Microsoft develops MS-DOS (short for Microsoft Disk Operating System) from an existing operating system called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) for the new IBM-PC compatible computer. IBM renamed the operating system PC-DOS. According to Microsoft, in 1994, MS-DOS was running on some 100 million computers world-wide.
1983	Apple introduces Lisa – the first personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). The inspiration for Lisa came from the Xerox Star, which had a mouse, windows, and pop-up menus.
1985 -2009	Microsoft introduces Windows, but not really widely used until version 3, released in 1990. It still required DOS to run. Windows development continued with several other major releases, for home and business, up to the current version, Window 7.
1993 -2009	Vinod Dahm invents the Intel Pentium processor, which developed through several models to the Core 2 and Quad-Core variants.
2009 +	The Intel Core “i” series have clock speeds in excess of 3 GHz. Development continues as the ever increasing processing power and systems speeds allow the advancement of such functions as leading edge graphical and audio human interfaces.