history of computer

The earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BCE. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles. This was the first known computer and most advanced system of calculation known to date - preceding Greek methods by 2,000 years. Abaci of a more modern design are still used as calculation tools today.
In the 7th century, Indian mathematician Brahmagupta gave the first explanation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit.

Around the 3rd century BC, Indian mathematician Pingala discovered the binary numeral system. In this system, still used today to process all modern computers, a sequence of ones and zeros can represent any number.

In 1703, Gottfried Leibniz developed logic in a formal, mathematical sense with his writings on the binary numeral system. In his system, the ones and zeros also represent true and falseon and off states. But it took more than a century before George Boole published his Boolean algebra in 1854 with a complete system that allowed computational processes to be mathematically modeled. values or

By this time, the first mechanical devices driven by a binary pattern had been invented. The industrial revolution had driven forward the mechanization of many tasks, and this included weaving. Punch cards controlled Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom in 1801, where a hole punched in the card indicated a binary one and an unpunched spot indicated a binary zero. Jacquard's loom was far from being a computer, but it did illustrate that machines could be driven by binary systems.

It wasn't until Charles Babbage, considered the "father of computing," that the modern computer began to take shape with his work on the Analytical Engine.^[12] The device, though never successfully built, had all of the functionality in its design of a modern computer. He first described it in 1837 -- more than 100 years before any similar device was successfully constructed. The difference between Babbage's Engine and preceding devices is simple - he designed his to be programmed.

During their collaboration, mathematician Ada Lovelace published the first ever computer programs in a comprehensive set of notes on the analytical engine. Because of this, Lovelace is popularly considered the first computer programmer, but some scholars contend that the programs published under her name were originally created by Babbage.