History of Computer Science: history of computing hardware

In the beginning, computing hardware was only machines that need people manually perform the arithmetic operations.  The history of human computing can be traced back to thousands of years old. Our ancients used fingers to begin their calculations. The counting device changed many appearances from tally sticks, Fertile Cresent,  livestock or grains,  abacus, to analog computers like famous Thomas Arithmometer. It spent thousands years from the fingers to punched card machines. 

Computer Science, the special and popular discipline, emerged in 20th century. As one of its' most important object of study, computing hardware has already undergone great changes. In this post, I will simply show you how it changed.

Punched card machines stepped on the calculating stage in 1801. At this year, a loom that Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented used punched cards to control the pattern being woven. From Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine to  Percy Ludgate's programmable mechanical computer, every new change means great development in calculating history.  In 1901, Percy Ludgate's invention ended the history of punched card machines. 

Today, stored-programming computers are known by almost every modern people in the world. A stored-programming computer is one which stores program instructions in electronic memory.(wiki). Simply, all the computers that you see are stored-programming computers. This kind of machines have extremely good features compared with punched card machines. For example, every instructions are stored in machine. People don't need tons of cards to control  operations. 

In sum, the history of computer hardware is long. However, with the development of modern technology, the speed of hardware's update is becoming faster and faster. The content of Computer Science is also richer and richer.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware