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The Pascaline
It was invented by the French mathematician and philosofer, Biaise Pascal, thought to be the first automated calculator. It operated with gears and wheels. -
The Leibniz Wheel or Stepped Reckoner
It was invented by a german mathematician and philosofer, Gottried Wilhelm Leibniz. It was an improved version of Pascal's invention, a digtal calculator. It was given the name of "Stepped Reckoner" because of the fluted drums used for its function. -
Jacquard Loom
It was created by the French weaver and merchant, Joseph-Marie Jacquard. It was the machine the introduced storage and programming. It used punched cards as to operate. -
Difference Engine
It was invented by a leading pioneer in the field of computers, Charles Baggage. It was capable of solving more complex equations than the previous computers. -
Analytical Machine
Another creation of Charles Baggage. It had the numerous similarities with modern computers, since it was built with the same essential parts as them, like the mill, the reader and thee printer. -
Tabulating Machine
Creaed by an amerincan businessman, inventor and statistician, Herman Hollerith, this machine was the template to many other computers for years to come. The rason being, it was able to read, tally and sort data through punched cards. -
The Z1
Built by the German mathematician, engineer and computer pioneer Konrad Zuse. It was a general purpose computer. -
The ABC
Also known as the Atanasoff Berry Computer, it was invented by John V. Atanasoff. It was used to encode information with electricity and solve systems of linear equations. -
The Mark I
A project under the surveillance of Howard Aiken at Harvard University. It was sponsored by IBM and the Navy, so it would assist in WW2 by doing complex and vital calculations. -
The Colossus
The world's first programmable electronic digital computer. It was invented by an English team of telephone engineers led by Tommy Flowers. It was designed to decipher the Lorenz encryped messages between Hitler and his generals. -
The ENIAC
The first general-purpose, totally electronic computer, created by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It was 30.5 meters long, 3 meters high and it weighted 30 tons due to his use of 18.00 vacuum tubes. -
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The First Generation
The computers were only affordable by big cooperations, and used only by professionals. The were locked in separate and secured rooms. -
The Mark (II-IV)
Also developed by Aiken, they were the advanced versions of the prototype Mark I -
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The Seciond Generation
Th computers had their vaccum tubes replaced by transistors. This caused in their price and size decrease. At the same time, high-level programming languages had began to develop. -
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The Third Generation
The invention of the circuit and the chip. This caused even further reduction in the computers' price and size. The software industry had reached the market. -
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The Fourth Generation
Significant advances allowed for the computer systems to fit into a single circuit board. The first desktop computer, named Altair 8800 had begome available. Also, the company Microsoft was formed. -
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The Fifth Genertion
The miniaturization of computers. Numerous improvements are made daily on computers and storage media. The invention of multimedia and the easy access to the internet shortly followed. Portable devices are now common and all the more powerful computers are produced rapidly.