3000 B.CA. City Of Troy First Inhabited. The history of computers and computing is of special significance to us, because many of its most important event have occurred within our lifetime. Historians divide the history of the modern computer into generations, beginning with the introduction of the UNIVAC I, the first commercially viable computer, in 1951. But the quest for a mechanical servant one that could free people from the more boring aspects of thinking is centuries old. Why did it take so long todevelop the computer? Some of the "credit" goes to human foibles. Too often brilliant insights were not recognized or given adequate support during an inventor's lifetime. Instead, these insights would lay dormant for as long as 100 years until some one else rediscovered or reinvented them. some of the "credit" has to go to workers, too, who sabotaged labor-saving devices that threatened to put them out of work. The rest of the "credit" goes to techonology; some insights were simply ahead of their time's technology. Here, then, is an abbreviated history of the stops and starts that have given us this marvel of the modern age, the computer.

 3000 B.C. The Abacus The abacus is probably considered the original mechanical counting device ( it has been traced back 5000 years). It is still used in education to demonstrate the principles of counting and arithmetic and in business for speedy calculations. The Computer Museum, Boston, MA

1623-1662: Blaise Pascal Although inventor painter, and sculptor Leonardo daw Vinci (1425-1529) sketched ideas for a mechanical adding machine, it was another 150 years before French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal finally invented and built th "Pascaline" in 1642 to help his father, a tax collector. Although Pascal was praised throughout Europe, his invention was a financial failure. The hand-built machines were expensive and delicate; moreover, Pascal was the only person who could repair them. because human labor was actually cheaper, the Pascaline was abandoned as impractical.

1642: The Pascaline The Pascaline used a counting wheel desigen; Numbers for each digit were arranged on wheels so that a single revolution of one wheel would engage gears that turned the wheel one tenth of a revolution to its immediate left.Although the pascaline was aban-doned as impractical,its counting wheel design was used by all mechanical calcutars until the mid-960s,when they were made absolete by electronic alculators.Courtesy of international Business machines Carporation. Unautharized use not permitted.

1793-1871: Charless Babbage Every one from bankers to navigators depended on mathematical tables during the bustling industrial Revolution. However, these hand -calculated tables were usually full of errors. After discovering that his own tables were riddled with mistakes,Charles Babbage envisioned a steam powered "differential engine" and then an "analytical engine" that would perform tedious calculalion accurately.Although Babbage never perfected his devices,they introduced many of the concepts used in today.s general purpose computer.

1801: Jacquard's Loom A practicing weaver, frenchman jaseph-marle jasquard (1752-1834) spent what little spare time he had trying to improve the lot of his fellow weav.(They worked 16 hour days,withnodays off) His solution,the jacquard loom, was created in 1801.Holes strategically punched in a card directed the movement of needles,thread,and fabric, creating the elaborate patterns still known as jacquar weaves, jacquard's weaving loom is considered the first significant use of binary automation. the loom was an immediate succes with mill owners because they called hire cheaper less skilled workers. But weavers, fearing unemployment,rioted called jacquard a traitor.

1816-1852: Lady AdaAugusta Lovelace The daughter Of poet lord Byran,Lody Ada Augusta lovelacebecame a mentor to Babbaga translated his works,adding her own extensive footnotes.Her suggestion that punched cards could be prepared to instruct Babbage's engineto repeat certain operations has led some people to cell her the frist programmer.ada,the programming language adapted by the department of defense as a standard,is named for lady Ado lovelace