Transcript Bits of History - Stockton University

Bits of History
A section from P. McKeown’s book
<Living with Computers>
Electronic Computer
• An electronic computer uses 0-1 binary
codes (digital code) to represent, store
and process data, picture, program, …
• Why do we human use decimal numbers,
while computers use binary numbers?
Ancestors of e-Computers
• ABC: 1942, John V. Atanasoff, Iowa State
University
• MARK I: 1944, Howard Aiken, IBM &
Harvard University
• ENIAC: 1946, John Mauchly and J.
Presper Eckert, Jr., Univ. of Penn.
• EDVAC: early 1950s, John von Neumann
• UNIVAC 1: 1952, Mauchly and Eckert, first
commercial one
Four Generations of Computers
• First generation:
– Vacuum tube
• Second generation:
– Transistor
• Third generation
– Integrated circuit
• Fourth generation
– Microprocessor