19-07-2014, 01:58 PM
A HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER
A HISTORY.ppt (Size: 439 KB / Downloads: 16)
PRE-HISTORY ERA
The abacus is believed to have been invented in 4th century B.C.
The Antikythera mechanism, a device used for registering and predicting the motion of the stars and planets, is dated to 1st century B.C.
Arabic numerals were introduced in Europe in the 8th and 9th century A.D. and was used until the 17th century.
PRE-HISTORY ERA
John Napier of Scotland invents logs in 1614 to allow multiplication and division to be converted to addition and subtraction.
Wilhelm Schickard, a professor at the University of Tubingen, Germany builds a mechanical calculator in 1623 with a 6-digit capacity. The machine worked, but it never makes it beyond the prototype stage.
ELECTRONICS ERA
Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor both announce the integrated circuit in 1959.
The IBM 360 is introduced in April of 1964 and quickly becomes the standard institutional mainframe computer. By the mid-80s the 360 and its descendents have generated more than $100 billion in revenue for IBM.
MINI ERA
Doug Engelbart demonstrates a word processor in 1968.
Also in 1968, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce founded a company called Intel.
Xerox creates its Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) in 1969.
Fairchild Semiconductor introduces a 256-bit RAM chip in 1970.
In late 1970 Intel introduces a 1K RAM chip and the 4004, a 4-bit microprocessor. Two years later comes the 8008, an 8-bit processor.
NETWORK ERA
The number of network hosts breaks 10,000 in 1987; two years later, the number of hosts breaks 100,000.
Tem Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web. CERN releases the first Web server in 1991.
By 1992, the number of network hosts breaks 1,000,000.
The World Wide Web sports a growth rate of 341,634% in service traffic in its third year--1993.