The main milestones of technological development that were the precursors of computers.
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5000 BCE
The abacus - the first mechanical accounting device in history.
It's about 5,000 years old, and its effectiveness has stood the test of time, as it is still in use in various parts of the world. It's a simple device: a series of beads strung on rods that are in turn mounted on a rectangular frame. As the beads are moved on rods, their positions represent values. Despite its ability to represent and store data, this device cannot be called a computer, since it lacks the fundamental element called a program. -
Pascaline
In 1642, the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal built the first mechanical adding machine, called Pascaline, which worked with a complicated mechanism of gears and wheels: the complete rotation of one of the cogwheels turned the next wheel one step. The Pascaline only performed addition and subtraction. The Pascaline turned out to be a financial failure, as it was more expensive than human labor for arithmetic calculations. -
Leibniz Climbing Wheel
The German Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz designed another mechanical adding machine in 1671, which was finally completed in 1694, known as the Universal Calculator or Leibniz Scaled Wheel, capable of addition, subtraction, division and square roots. In these mechanical calculators, the data, represented by the positions of the gears, were entered manually. From this time onwards, new models of mechanical calculators followed, with different variations and improvements. -
The first punched card
French weaving manufacturer Joseph-Marie Jacquard devised a loom in 1801, still in use today, that could automatically reproduce weaving patterns by reading information encoded in patterns of holes punched in stiff paper cards.The cards were punched and arranged in a certain sequence to indicate a particular weaving design. They would later have a great influence on the work of Charles Babbage. Jacquard's loom made a threefold theoretical contribution to future computer development. -
Difference Engine
Charles Babbage, English scientist and mathematician, considered the historical father of computation. He devised the Difference Engine in 1823, capable of calculating and printing mathematical tables of up to twenty figures to eight decimal places and sixth-degree polynomials. He worked for years on perfecting it, but finally had to abandon the project when the financial support ran out before he could build a machine with the technical refinement that his design demanded. -
Analytical Engine
Babbage, faced with the apparent failure of his invention, conceived this revolutionary machine in 1834, which can be considered a true nineteenth-century prototype of a computer. In essence, the Analytical Engine was a multi-purpose calculator with the capacity to operate in different ways depending on the problem posed to it. The basic elements of modern computers are already present in this machine: input and output devices, control unit, logic-arithmetic unit and memory. -
ABC (Atanasoff Berry Computer)
Dr. Atanasoff developed the first electronic digital computer between 1937 and 1942. He called his invention the Atanasoff-Berry computer. Clifford Berry, a graduate student, was a useful aid in the construction of the ABC computer. Some authors believe that there is no single person who can be credited with inventing the computer, but that it was the effort of many people.
The world's first automatically operating electronic digital computer. -
The birth of Mark I Colossus
More than 70 years ago, this top-secret project came along and helped win a war. Colossus machines were the first electronic computing devices. They were used by the British to read German encrypted communications during World War II. It was an automatic electric machine, although it had electromechanical components; it could perform 5 arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and reference to previous results. -
First prototype of desktop calculators
Back in 1954, IBM presented the world’s first electronic calculator in the United States, made with transistors, something highly revolutionary and technological for the time. It was quite large and could cost around $80,000. But, after a short time, more commercial models were launched, which thanks to the development were more reliable and affordable. -
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The creation of ARPANET
ARPANET was just a small network of computers that was created on behalf of the United States Department of Defense. They did so as a way of communication for the various agencies in the country. We are witnessing the seminal net that would become what we now know as the Internet. In 1990, ARPANET ended its existence. -
PC
IBM launches a PC
IBM achieved a milestone in the history of humanity in general and of computing in particular: with the commercialization of the personal computer, or PC, it managed to turn computing from being a hidden mystery for the majority, to becoming something useful and practical for everyone.