Evolution of Computing Devices

Evolution of Computing Devices

Evolution of Computing Devices

Before 1801

Calculators were the earliest computing devices. They were the only computation tools for long years before the creation of computers.

1801

The years that followed were dominated by the use of punched cards for computing. The users used to submit programming assignments to a computer center using stacks of cards. The programs used to be queued for processing and execution.

1930 - 1960

Desktop mechanical calculators were built during the 1930s. During the 1950s and the ’60s, electronic desktop calculators came up. Analog computational technologies predominated this period.

1940 - 1960 

This span of time witnessed the emergence of the digital computing technology. Zuse Z3, ENIAC and EDSAC were some of the early digital computers.

• First-generation computers were based on the von Neumann architecture.
• The second generation computers were characterized by the replacement of vacuum tube by bipolar transistors. They were composed of printed circuit boards.

After 1960

These years witnessed the development of the third generation computers. They were based on integrated circuits. Computer systems of this period had large storage capacities and high processing powers. Multi-core CPUs became available in the 21st century. Laptops, palmtops, handheld PCs, notebook computers and tablet PCs are popular today. Computer development still continues.