The first known computer device was the abacus, invented in Mesopotamia about 2500 BCE. It is a manual calculator, which helps to add and subtract multiple numbers. It also maintains the current state of the calculation, similar to your hard drive today. The abacus was created because, the level of society was greater than one person could keep and use in his mind. There may be thousands of people in the village or tens of thousands of cattle. There are many variations of abacus, but let's look at a very basic version with each line representing different strengths often.
So one bead in the bottom row represents one unit, in the next row they represent 10, a line above 100, and so on. Suppose we have 3 cow heads representing 3 beads in the bottom row on the right side. If we could buy 4 more cows we would just load 4 beads more than the total of 7. But if we added another 5 after the first 3 we would run out of beads, so we would lay everything back on the left, slide one bead in the second right row, representing ten, and insert the last 2 beads in the bottom row at 12. This is very helpful with large numbers. So if we were to add 1,251 we would produce 1 in the bottom row, 5 in the second row, 2 in the third row, and 1 in the fourth line - we don't have to add to our head and the custs keep perfect for us. Over the next 4000 years, humans invented all kinds of sophisticated machines, such as the astrolabe, which enabled ships to calculate their latitude. Or a slide rule, to help with duplication and division.
And there are a hundred actual types of clocks that can be used to calculate sunrise, wavelengths, celestial bodies, and even time. Each of these resources makes the task of calculating faster, easier, and often more accurate --– lowering the barrier to entry, and at the same time, increasing our mental capacity –– be aware, this is the theme we will cover most in this series. As the first computer pioneer Charles Babbage said: “With the advent of every technology, as well as with the development of all new tools, human performance is being reduced.” However, none of these devices are called "computers". The first written use of the word "computer" dates back to 1613, in a book by Richard Braithwait. Braithwait said, "I've learned the hardest computer of all time, and the best scientist who ever breathed, and you shorten your days to a shorter number". In those days, the computer was a mathematician, sometimes with the help of machines, but not always.
This topic of work continued until the late 1800s, when computer definitions began to evolve towards devices. Notable among these was the Step Reckoner, built in 1694 by German polymath Gottfried Leibniz. Leibniz said “... it is under the guise of the best men to spend their time in the calculations where any farmer can do the job accurately with the help of a machine. ”It works like an odometer in your car, which is just a machine to increase the number of miles your car has traveled. The device had a series of rotating gears; each gear had ten teeth, representing digits from 0 to 9. Whenever the gear exceeded nine, it turned back to 0 and pushed the gear closer with one tooth. Kind of like when you hit 10 on those basic abacus. This works back when the extraction is done, too. With some mechanical ingenuity, the Step Reckoner was also able to duplicate and separate the numbers. Repetition and division are simply added and removed a lot.
For example, if we want to divide 17 by 5, we just subtract 5, then 5, then 5 again, and then we can't subtract 5… so we know that 5 goes into 17 three times, and 2 left. Step Reckoner was able to do this by default, and was the first machine to perform all four tasks. And this very successful design was used for the next three centuries of calculator design. Unfortunately, even for mechanical calculators, the real problems of the world required many calculations before a solution could be found. It can take hours or days to produce one result. Also, these handmade machines were expensive, not accessible to most people. Thus, before the 20th century, many people had access to a computer using pre-set tables attached to the amazing “human computers” we mentioned. So if you needed to know the 8 square root of six billion and eight hundred and eight hundred and nine hundred and nine hundred, instead of spending all day pressing your hand remembering your step, you can look it up in a big book full of square root tables per minute or so. Speed and accuracy are very important on the battlefield, so soldiers were among the first to install computing on it The most difficult problem is to accurately shoot the shells of a weapon, which by the 1800's could travel more than a mile (or more than half a mile). Adding to this variation in weather, temperature, and atmospheric pressure, as well as striking a large object like a ship was difficult. Range tables have been set up that allow gunmen to look at the natural environment and the distance they want to shoot, and the table will tell them the angle to set the canon. These Range Tables are very effective, well used in World War II. The problem was that, if you changed the design of a cannon or shell, it had to be calculated a whole new table, which was time consuming and inevitably led to errors. Charles Babbage acknowledged this problem in 1822 in a paper addressed to the Royal Astronomical Society entitled: "Beware of the use of machines in compiling astronomical tables and figures". Let's go to the thinking bubble. Charles Babbage has proposed a new machine called the Difference Engine, a very complex machine that can measure polynomials.
Polynomials describe the relationship between several variables - such as the breadth and intensity of the air, or the amount of pizza Carrie Anne eats with pleasure. Polynomials can also be used to quantify logarithmic and trigonometric functions, which is a real problem with manual calculations. Charles began construction in the 1823, and over the next two decades, he tried to invent and assemble the 25,000 objects, all weighing 15 tons. Unfortunately, the project was eventually the abandoned. However, in 1991, historians completed the construction of the Digital Engine based on Babbage's drawings and documents - and it worked! But most importantly, while building the Difference Engine, Babbage thought of a more sophisticated machine - the Analytical Engine. Unlike the Difference Engine, Step Reckoner and all other computer devices before it - the Analytical Engine was "a normal computer". It can be used for many things, not just one count; can be provided with data and perform tasks in sequence; had a memory even an old printer.
Like the Difference Engine, it was ahead of its time, and it was never fully built. However, the concept of "automated computers" - which can be identified in a series of automated tasks, was a big deal, and symbolized computer programs. English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote of the Analytical Engine's speculation plans, saying, "New, larger and stronger languages will be developed for future analysis." Through her work, Ada is often regarded as the world’s first program. The Analytical Engine will encourage, apparently, the first generation of computer scientists, who have incorporated many of Cabbage's ideas into their machines. That is why Cabbage is often regarded as the father of computers. Thanks Thought Bubble! Thus, by the end of the 19th century, computer equipment was used for specialized purposes in science and engineering, but rarely seen in business, government, or domestic. However, the US government faced a major census in 1890 that required a computer-only operating system.
The US Constitution requires a census every ten years, for the purpose of allocating public funds, conference representation, and the like. And by 1880, the US population was growing, largely as a result of migration. That census took seven years to complete by hand and by the time it was completed, it had expired - and it was predicted that the 1890 census would take 13 years to complete. That's a little problem when needed every ten years! The Census office referred to Herman Hollerith, who had built a typewriter. His machine was "electro-mechanical" - it used traditional arithmetic systems, such as Leibniz's Step Reckoner - but integrated it with electrical components. Hollerith's machine used punch cards that were paper cards with a grid of places that could be punched to represent data. For example, there was a series of holes in the marital status. If you were married, you would punch a married couple, and when the card was inserted into Hollerith's machine, small metal pins would drop over the card - if the location was pointed, the pin would pass through a paper hole and into a small mercury vial, complete circulation.
This completed circuit generates electric power, changing gears to add one, in this case, to the number of "spouses". Hollerith's machine was about 10x faster than handheld tablets, and the Census was eliminated
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