Evolution of computer hardware

Switching:

Analog and digital (and hybrid?)

Analog era

Ancient

Abacus
Antikythera mechanism
- (Oldest known analog computer)
- (Used to calculate astronomical positions)

1617: Napier's bones and logs
1673: Leibniz calculator
- (First calculator design that could do all 4 basic arithmetic operations)
- (Leibniz wheel (from this design??) was widely used for centuries afterwards)
1804: Jacquard loom
- (Used punchcards)
- (Jacquard machine fitted onto looms)
1880s: Hollerith's machine
- (Like Jacquard looms, used punchcards)
- (Made to help process data of US census 1890)
1820s: Difference engine - Charles Babbage
1837: Analytical engine - Charles Babbage
- (A successor to difference engine)
- (Had ALU, control flow, integrated memory)
- (First general-purpose computer design that is Turing-complete ??)

1872: Tide-predicting machine by Lord Kelvin
1938: Z3 designed
- (Made by Konrad Zuse in Germany)
- (First programmable, fully automatic, digital computer)
- (Clock: 5-10Hz)
- (Program stored on punched film)
1940: Bombe
- (Helped decode Enigma at Bletchley Park)
1943: First version of Colossus built in UK
- (First programmable electronic digital computer)
1944: Mark I
1945: ENIAC
- (Used for calculating missile trajectories for US military)
- (First programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer)
- (Was at University of Pennsylvania)
1948: Manchester baby
- (First programmable, general-purpose, stored-program, electronic digital computer)
- (Was at University of Manchester, UK)
- (First machine to have all aspects of modern electronic digital computers)
1949: EDVAC
- (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
- (A successor to ENIAC)
- (Binary and stored-program, unlike ENIAC which was decimal)
1951: Ferranti Mark I
- (First commercially available general purpose computer)
- (Evolved from Manchester Mark I)
1951: UNIVAC
- (Made by people involved with design of ENIAC)
- (Computation made with UNIVAC-I accurately predicted 1952 US election outcome)
1952: ORDAC
- (Along with EDVAC, this was a successor to ENIAC)
- (First computer to have a compiler ??)
1952: ILLIAC
- (Illinois Automatic Computer)
- (Made by University of Illinois)
- (First computer to be made and owned entirely by an educational institution)
1985: First FPGA
- (XC2064 by Xilinix)