HISTORY OF COMPUTER

The history of computer begins with the development of Abacus before 2500 years ago. It is only a memory-helping device rather than a real calculating machine. The development of Napier's Bones, Slide Rule, Pascaline, Leibnitz Stepped Reckoner, Differential and Analytical Engine that were also called mechanical computers helped to form the computer that we are using now.The first electro mechanical computer was built in 1937 by Howard H. Aiken,a Harvard engineer.It was a large automatic digital computer based on IBM electro mechanical parts.It was also called Harward Mark-I.After that another digital computer was built in 1937-1942 at Lowa state University by John V Atanasoff and Clifford Berry which introduced the ideas of binary arithmetic,regenerative memory and logic circuit.Electronic computers were developed using the ideas of mechanical and electro mechanical computers.ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator),EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer),EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) and UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) were developed as electronic computers among which UNIVAC was the most powerful computer.