The origin of the computer is hard to pin down together with the exact date. But let see computer history by its definition.
Computer “a device that computes”
Abacus is a Latin word that has its origins in the Greek words abax or abakon (meaning "table" or "tablet") which in turn, possibly originated from the Semitic word abq, meaning "sand". It is also called a counting frame, a calculating tool used primarily for performing arithmetic processes. It was developed and used by the Chinese in 3000 BC. But the oldest surviving abacus was used in 300 B.C. by the Babylonians
In 1617 an eccentric (some say mad) Scotsman named John Napier invented logarithms, which are a technology that allows multiplication to be performed via addition. The magic ingredient is the logarithm of each operand, which was originally obtained from a printed table. But Napier also invented an alternative to tables, where the logarithm values were carved on ivory sticks which are now called Napier's Bones
Slide Rule appeared in 1650 and was the result of a joint effort of two Englishmen Edmund Gunter and the reverend William Oughtred. This slide rule based on Napier's logarithms was to become the first analog computer (of the modern ages) since multiplication and subtraction were figured out by physical distance.
In 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid for his father who was a tax collector. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven one-function calculator (it could only add) but couldn't sell many because of their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate (at that time it was not possible to fabricate gears with the required precision).
Just a few years after Pascal, the German Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (co-inventor with Newton of calculus) managed to build a four-function (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) calculator that he called the stepped reckoner because, instead of gears, it employed fluted drums having ten flutes arranged around their circumference in a stair-step fashion. Although the stepped reckoner employed the decimal number system (each drum had 10 flutes), Leibniz was the first to advocate use of the binary number system which is fundamental to the operation of modern computers. Leibniz is considered one of the greatest of the philosophers but he died poor and alone.
In 1801 the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a power loom (Jacquard’s Loom) that could base its weave (and hence the design on the fabric) upon a pattern automatically read from punched wooden cards, held together in a long row by rope.
By 1822 the English mathematician Charles Babbage was proposing a steam driven calculating machine the size of a room, which he called the Difference Engine. Then he invented Analytic Engine. This device, large as a house and powered by 6 steam engines, would be more general purpose in nature because it would be programmable, thanks to the punched card technology of Jacquard.
From Jacquards Loom came Hollerith’s Punch (Read/Write) Cards. Hollerith had the insight to convert punched cards (read-only) to what is today called a read/write technology. While riding a train, he observed that the conductor didn't merely punch each ticket, but rather punched a particular pattern of holes whose positions indicated the approximate height, weight, eye color, etc. of the ticket owner. This was done to keep anyone else from picking up a discarded ticket and claiming it was his own (a train ticket did not lose all value when it was punched because the same ticket was used for each leg of a trip). Hollerith realized how useful it would be to punch (write) new cards based upon an analysis (reading) of some other set of cards. Complicated analyses, too involved to be accomplished during a single pass thru the cards, could be accomplished via multiple passes thru the cards using newly printed cards to remember the intermediate results. Then Hollerith after a success built Tabulating Machine Company, where in short time became International Business Machines, known today as IBM.
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