CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.      HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF COMPUTERS

A computer is an electronic machines which receives data as input processes the data received using set of instruction and produces information as output. This machines also stores the data and information and can retrieve them in future. For centuries, record keeping has been an manual basis and developed thought the age of machine assisted into the present day computer age.

          According to Rwade Cole (1982) the development of computer is inextricably tried up with man’s basic urge to count quantity and measure.

          The earliest counting device, the “Abacus” was inverted by the Greeks. This developed with the invention of a formal numbering system which is still used today by over half of the world population especially in the far east. It is believed to have been in existence since 3000 BC and was later developed by the Chinese.

          Also involved in the evolution of computer were the following men, the first was the scientific Renate evolution of computer were the following men, the first was the scientific renaissance of he seventeenth century which gave use to the world’s first mechanical adding machines built by a young French man Blaise Pascal (1642)  . He invented these machines that could add figures automatically to help him ease the computation bad of his father, then a supervisor of taxes. This device is still in use today on paper tape.

          Next is a German mathematician, Gottfried Von Leibuitz (1643)  who expanded on pascals work and produced a better device that could multiply, divide and extract square roots. Leibnitz was motivated by the urge to get relief from burden some computation.

          A French textile manufacturer named Joseph M. Jacquared (1801) inverted a textile room operated from punch card instruction know as “ the automatic weaving loom”. This device helped him in controlling the threads on his weaving loom.

          Althought this device was not a computer, but it is utilized the punched card principles which later lead to the bedrock of the computer