The History of Computer and The Application Areas of the Computer

The History of Computer and the application areas of the computer are described below:

a.  Banks: Banks provide online accounting facility, which includes current balances, deposits, overdrafts, interest charges, shares, and trustee records. ATM machines are making it even easier for customers to deal with banks.

b.  Engineering: Computers are widely used for engineering purpose. One of the major areas is CAD (Computer-aided design). That provides the creation and modification of images.

c.   Medicine: Computers have become an important part of hospitals, labs, and dispensaries. The computers are being used in hospitals to keep the record of patients and medicines. It is also used in scanning and diagnosing different diseases. ECG, EEG, Ultrasounds and CT Scans etc., are also done by computerized machines.

d.  Education: The computer provides a tool in the education system known as CBE (Computer Based Education). The computer education is rapidly increasing the graph of a number of computer students. It is used to prepare a database about the performance of a student and analysis is carried out on this basis.

e.  Ticketing: In today's world one can book air or railway tickets online with the help of computer and internet and could know all the relevant information. The ticketing system is also applied in bus, hotel and cinemas tickets reservations.

f.    Defense: Computers are largely used in defense. Modern tanks, missiles, weapons etc. Military also employs computerized control systems. Some military areas where a computer has been used are missile control, military communication, military operation, and planning.

g.  Business: A computer has the high speed of calculation, diligence, accuracy, reliability, or versatility which made it an integrated part in all business organizations. Computers are used in business organizations for payroll calculations, budgeting, sales analysis, financial forecasting, etc.

h.  Government: Computers play an important role in government. Some major fields in this category are budget, sales tax department, income tax department, computerization of voters lists, weather forecasting, etc.

i.     Desktop publishing: We can use the computer for desktop publishing, for example: create a layout for magazine, newspaper, book, etc. One can create animation and portrait also with the help of different software tools.

j.     Communication: Communication means to convey a message, an idea, a picture or speech that is received and understood clearly and correctly by the person for whom it is meant for. Some main areas in this category are email, chatting, FTP, telnet, etc.

The history of the computer in Nepal is not that old since Nepal has not given any contribution to the development of evolution of the computer. It was in 2028 B.S. when HMG brought IBM 1401 (a Second Generation computer) on rent for Rs. 1 lakhs and 25 thousand per month to process census data. Later the computer was bought by National Computer Center (NCC). In 2038 B.S., a fourth generation computer was imported with the aid of UNDP and UNFPA from England for 20 lakhs US dollars. Its name was ICL 2950/10. This computer had 64 terminals and it is kept in the museum now.

At that time British Government helped to develop manpower of NCC. In the meantime, Nepalese students went to India, Thailand, and the USA for the computer education themselves. In 2039 B.S., microcomputers such as Apple, Vector, Sins, etc were imported by private companies and individuals. Many private companies like Computer Consultancy (CC), Management Information Processing System (MIPS), Data System International (DSI), etc were established. Such private companies started selling computers and training people in other to produce manpower in Nepal itself.

Charles Babbage was born in 1791 in Teignmouth, Devonshire, United Kingdom. He was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. Difference engine was his first invention and it was powered by steam. In 1822 AD, he persuaded the British government to finance his design to build a machine that would calculate tables for algorithms. He also designed an analytical machine in 1833 AD. This machine was interconnected maze of gears, cams, and shafts powered by steam. But unfortunately, he was unable to complete it.

Lady Augusta Ada described her approach as "poetical science" and herself as an "Analyst (& Metaphysician)". As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the Analytical Engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called Notes. These notes contain what many consider to be the first computer programme” that is, an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine.

He was born in1903 and was a mathematician. He was regarded as “father of stored programae. He discovered stored program technology in1945 AD. This became the fundamental program technology for the modern digital computer. His work aided in faster, flexibility and efficiency in computing.

In 1881, Herman Hollerith began designing a machine to tabulate census data more efficiently than by traditional hand methods. The U.S. Census Bureau had taken eight years to complete the 1880 census, and it was feared that the 1890 census would take even longer. Herman Hollerith invented and used a punched card device to help analyze the 1890 US census data. Herman Hollerith's great breakthrough was his use of electricity to read, count, and sort punched cards whose holes represented data gathered by the census-takers. His machines were used for the 1890 census and accomplished in one year what would have taken nearly ten years of hand tabulating. In 1896, Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company to sell his invention, the Company became part of IBM in 1924.

The English mathematician and philosopher George Boole (1815-1864) was one of the first men, after the great Gottfried Leibniz, who believed that the human thinking is mastered by laws, which can be described by means of mathematic. Boole is the inventor of Boolean logic, which is the basis of modern digital computer logic, thus Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. In 1841 he founded a new branch of mathematics called Invariant Theory, later to inspire Einstein.

As early as 1936, Aiken had dreamed of building a large-scale calculator, but found it difficult to interest many other people in the project. He learned, in reading Passages From the Life of a Philosopher by Charles Babbage, that the early nineteenth-century inventor had had a similar idea almost a hundred years before. By 1939, already at Harvard, Aiken, in collaboration with engineers at the International Business Machines engineering laboratory in Endicott, New York, began research which was to last about five years in the design and construction of the automatic sequence-controlled calculator.

Abacus is an ancient calculating device having its roots in Asia since ages. Abacus in today's times time is made of wood, metal or plastic rectangular frame with freely sliding 5 beads over vertical rods. These beads are parted by an at-least fixed horizontal bar where 1 bead over the vertical bar is placed above the fixed horizontal bar and the remaining 4 beads below the fixed horizontal bar. The beads above the fixed horizontal bar represent number 5 whereas other each of the 4 beads below represents number 1.

John Napier was a great Scottish mathematician who invented the principle of calculation called the logarithm in 1614 AD. Then based on the same principle he invented a small device containing 10 rods engraved with numbers, each rod was further divided into 9 diagonal numbered parts. That device was called Napier's bone. This device was used for faster multiplication.

The slide rule is a mechanical analog computer, consisting of calibrated strips, usually a fixed outer pair and a movable inner one, with a sliding window called the cursor. It was the most commonly used calculation tool in science and engineering. Their use began to wane as computers were introduced, starting in the 1950s, and the scientific calculator made them largely obsolete by the early 1970s. Despite their similar appearance, a slide rule serves a purpose different from that of a standard ruler: a ruler measures physical distances and aids in drawing straight lines, while a slide rule performs mathematical operations.

Pascaline, also called Arithmetic Machine, the first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used. The Pascaline was designed and built by the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644. It could only do addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its dials. Pascal invented the machine for his father, a tax collector, so it was the first business machine too (if one does not count the abacus). He built 50 of them over the next 10 years.

Step Reckoner, a calculating machine designed (1671) and built (1673) by the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. The Step Reckoner expanded on the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal's ideas and did multiplication by repeated addition and shifting.

The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask, and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740).

The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. It spawned a class of machines, known as unit record equipment, and the data processing industry.

The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), called Mark I by Harvard University's staff, was a general purpose electro-mechanical computer that was used in the war effort during the last part of World War II.

The Harvard Mark II was an electromechanical computer built at Harvard University under the direction of Howard Aiken and was finished in 1947. It was financed by the United States Navy. The Mark II was constructed with high-speed electromagnetic relays instead of electro-mechanical counters used in the Mark I, making it much faster than its predecessor.

Short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator, the ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet, used 17,468 vacuum tubes, 15,000 relays, weighing almost 50 tons, uses 200 Kilowatts of electricity, and cost $500,000. While not completed until the end of the World War II, the ENIAC was created to help with the war efforts against German forces.

The Atanasoff– Berry Computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer, an early electronic digital computing device that has remained somewhat obscure. To say that it was the first is a debate among historians of computer technology. Most would probably credit John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, creators of the ENIAC, with the title. Still, other would argue that the credit undisputedly belongs to Iowa State mathematics and physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff for his work with the 'ABC,' with the help of graduate student Clifford Berry. Conceived in 1937, the machine was not programmable, being designed only to solve systems of linear equations. It was successfully tested in 1942.

EDSAC, in full Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, the first full-size stored-program computer, built at the University of Cambridge, Eng., by Maurice Wilkes and others to provide a formal computing service for users. EDSAC was built according to the von Neumann machine principles enunciated by the Hungarian American scientist John von Neumann and, like the Manchester Mark I, became operational in 1949. Wilkes built the machine chiefly to study computer programming issues, which he realized would become as important as the hardware details.

UNIVAC, in full Universal Automatic Computer, one of the earliest commercial computers. After leaving the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and John Mauchly, who had worked on the engineering design of the ENIAC computer for the United States during World War II, struggled to obtain capital to build their latest design, a computer they called the Universal Automatic Computer, or UNIVAC.

The EDVAC was a binary serial computer with automatic addition, subtraction, multiplication, programmed division and automatic checking with an ultrasonic serial memory[1] capacity of 1,000 44-bit words (later set to 1,024 words, thus giving a memory, in modern terms, of 5.5 kilobytes). The computer had almost 6,000 vacuum tubes and 12,000 diodes, and consumed 56 kW of power.

The differences between a 3rd and 4th generation of computers are given below

Third generation	Fourth generation
Period of 1964-Early 1970	Period of Early 1970-Till Date
Integrated circuits technology	Microprocessor technology
Processing speed was in nanoseconds	Processing speed was in picoseconds
Size, power consumption, heat generation was very high	Size, power consumption, heat generation was very low
Examples: IBM 370 series, PDP 11, etc.	Examples: IBM PC, Pentium PC, Apple, etc.

Computer generation is a classification of computers into different groups according to their manufacturing date, a memory device, hardware and software technologies used in them. There is five generation of computers. They are as follow:

a)  The first generation of computer: These computers were powered by thousands of vacuum tubes and their memory was stored on magnetic storage devices. Such as magnetic tapes and drums.

b)  The second generation of computer: These computers were based on transistor technology. These computers still require air conditioning. They were smaller, faster, more reliable, accurate and more energy efficient as compared to first generation computers.

c)The third generation of computer: These computers were based on an integrated circuit called IC technology. Power consumption and hear generation was less than the previous generation of computers. Extensive use of high-level languages became possible.

d)  The fourth generation of computer: These were based on microprocessors. These were powerful, compact, affordable, portable and totally reliable. Processing speed increased very fast up to picoseconds. Because of microprocessors PC, laptop and notebook computers were invented.

e)The fifth generation of computer: This generation is still in the development stage. These computers will be intelligent and knowledge base due to artificial intelligence. Instead of using high-level languages, natural languages will be used for giving instruction to the computer and making a computer program. These computers would be more user-friendly than any other previous generations.

The generation of computer means the gap between the developments of the computer in terms of the technologies. Each generation of computer is characterized by a major technologies development that fundamentally changed the way computer operate, resulting in smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, efficient and reliable device.

Technologies used in the different generation of computers are described below:

a)  First generation computer consisted of vacuum tubes and they were used from 1943-1958. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) computer is an example of a first-generation computer.

b)  Second generation (1959-1965) computer consisted of transistors i.e. vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors. Thus the size of the computer got reduced considerably.

c)  Third generation (1966-1973) computer consisted of integrated circuits (IC) i.e. many transistors in a single silicon chip. A single IC has many transistors, registers, and capacitors built on a single thin slice of silicon.

d)  With the invention of the microprocessor (1971), the fourth generation of computer evolution started and present-day computers are also categorized in the fourth generation.

e)  The fifth generation computers are under development. They are going to be based on principles of artificial intelligence and natural language recognition. Developers are aiming at computers capable of organizing themselves. The evolution of computer continues.

The evolution of computers started way back in the late 1930s. Binary arithmetic is at the core of the computers of all times. History of computers dates back to the invention of the mechanical adding machine in 1642. Abacus, an early computing tool, invention of logarithm by John Napier and the invention of slide rules by William Oughtred were significant events in the evolution of computers.

Evolution of computer technology can be divided into five generations.

a)  First generation computer consisted of vacuum tubes and they were used from 1943-1958. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) computer is an example of first generation computer.

b)  Second generation (1959-1965) computer consisted of transistors i.e. vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors. Thus the size of the computer got reduced considerably.

c)  Third generation (1966-1973) computer consisted of integrated circuits (IC) i.e. many transistors in single silicon chip. A single IC has many transistors, registers and capacitors built on a single thin slice of silicon.

d)  With the invention of microprocessor (1971), fourth generation of computer evolution started and present day computers are also categorized in the fourth generation.

e)  The fifth generation computers are under development. They are going to be based on principles of artificial intelligence and natural language recognition. Developers are aiming at computers capable of organizing themselves. The evolution of computer continues.