The electromechanical age from 1840-1940 saw important advances that enabled the development of early computers. Key inventions included Alessandro Volta's battery in 1800, which provided a reliable source of electricity and allowed information to be encoded as electrical signals. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in 1832 for electrical communication of text messages. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 for bidirectional voice communication. These inventions established telecommunication networks powered by electricity. Early electromechanical computing devices were also developed, such as tabulating machines in the 1850s, the Comptometer mechanical adding machine in 1885, and Herman Hollerith's punched card tabulating system used for the 1890 US Census. These early electromechanical devices demonstrated that

1. HISTORY OF
COMPUTER
ELECTROMECHANICAL AGE
1840-1940

2. ELECTROMECHANICAL AGE
-The discovery of ways to harness
electricity was the key advance made
during this period. Knowledge and
information could now be converted into
electrical impulses.

3. The beginning of telecommunication
Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile which is considered to be the first source of stored electricity in the 8th
Century.
The battery made by Volta is credited as the first electrochemical cell. It consists of two electrodes: one made of zinc, the
other of copper. The electrolyte is sulfuric acid or a brine mixture of salt and water. The electrolyte exists in the form 2H+
and SO4 2-. The zinc, which is higher than both copper and hydrogen in the electrochemical series, reacts with the
negatively charged sulphate. ( SO4 ) The positively charged hydrogen bubbles start depositing around the copper and take
away some of its electrons. This makes the zinc rod the negative electrode and the copper rod the positive electrode.
Voltaic Battery

4. Telegraph
Samuel F.J. Morse invented the first
magnetic telegraph in the year 1832 and
made an experiment version in 1815.

5. Telephone
The first successful bi-directional
transmission of clear speech by Bell and
Watson was made on 10 March 1876
when Bell spoke into his device, “Mr.
Watson, come here, I want to see you.”
and Watson answered. Bell used Gray's
liquid transmitter design[9] in his
famous 10 March 1876 experiment, but
avoided describing the liquid transmitter
in his public demonstrations. The liquid
transmitter had the problem that waves
formed on the surface of the liquid,
resulting in interference.

6. Marchese Guglielmo Marconi,(25 April
1874 - 20 July 1937) was an Italian
inventor, best known for his
development of a radiotelegraph system,
which served as the foundation for the
establishment of numerous affiliated
companies worldwide.
RADIO

7. Electromechanical Computing
Pehr and Advard Scheutz
(1853) complete their
tabulating Machine, capable of
processing fifteen-digit
numbers, printing out results
and rounding off to eight digits

8. A Comptometer (1885) is a type
of mechanical (or electro-
mechanical) adding machine.
The comptometer invented by
Dorr Felt , was the first adding
device to be driven solely by the
action of pressing keys, which
are arranged in an array of
vertical and horizontal columns.
COMPTOGRAPH-
Comptometer
with built-in
printer.

9. Punched Cards
A punch card or punched card (or punch card or Hollerith card or IBM card), is a piece of
stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes
in predefined positions. Now almost an obsolete recording medium, punched cards were
widely used throughout the 19th century for controlling textile looms and in the late 19th
and early 20th century for operating fairground organs and related instruments. It was used
through the 20th century in unit record machines for input, processing, and data storage.
Early digital computers used punched cards as the primary medium for input of both
computer programs and data, with offline data entry key punch machines. Some voting
machines use punched cards.

10. The company which became IBM was
founded in 1896 as the Tabulating
Machine Company[6] by Herman
Hollerith, in Broome County, New York
(Endicott, New York, Where it still
maintains very limited operations). It
was incorporated as Computing
Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR)
on June 16, 1911, and was listed on the
New York Stock Exchange in 1916. IBM
adopted its current name in 1924, when
it became a Fortune 500 company.

11. The Millionaire (1893), the
first efficient four-function
calculator invented by Otto
shweiger, a Swiss Engineer.