PESONAL INSIGHT ABOUT HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER

THE ABACUS

The Chinese abacus was developed about 5000 years ago. It was built out of wood and beads. It could be held and carried around easily. The abacus was so successful that its use spread form China to many other countries. The abacus does not actually do the computing, as today's calculators do. It helps people keep track of numbers as they do the computing.

Evolution: The Abacus Through the Ages

• 3 ages of abacus
• First is the Ancient time - The Salamis Tablet, the Roman Calculi and Hand-abacus are from the period 300 B.C. to 500 A.D.

 --> Roman hand-abacus are constructed from stone and metal

• Second is the Middle Ages - The Apices, the Coin-Board and the Line-Board are from period 5 A.D. to 1400 A.D.

--> In the later part of the Middle Ages, the use of the abacus began to diminish in Europe

• Third is the Modern Times - The San-pan, the Soroban and the Schoty are from the period 1200 A.D. to the present.

Napier's Bones

 

John Napier was a Scottish nobleman who is best known for his invention of logarithms. However he also invented several other devices to simplify multiplication and division. One of these he called "rabdologia" but they were usually simply known as "Napier's Bones" because the better quality sets were made from ivory or bone. Napier's bones is an abacus created by John Napier of Merchiston for calculation of products and quotients of numbers.The method was based on Arab mathematics and the lattice multiplication used by Matrakci Nasuh in the Umdet-ul Hisab^[1] and Fibonacci's work in his Liber Abaci. The technique was also called Rabdology.

PASCALINE

Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642 and first called Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline. Its can calculate could add and subtract two numbers directly and multiply and divide by repetition. Pascal went through 50 prototypes before presenting his first machine to the public in 1645. Pascaline was designed and built by the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644. It could only do addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its dials. Pascal invented the machine for his father, a tax collector, so it was the first business machine too (if one does not count the abacus). He built 50 of them over the next 10 years.

SLIDE RULE

Oughtred was born at Eton in BuckinghamshireWilliam Oughtred made the first slide rule by inscrlogarithms on wood or ivory. Before the invention of the pocket or handheld calculator, the slide rule was a popular tool for calculations. The use of slide rules continued until about 1974, after which electronic calculator became more popular.

 

              Wilhelm Schickard

Schickard is noted as a father of the computing era, as he pioneered the mechanical calculating era with his Calculating Clock. Schickard also contributed significantly to the field of astronomy through his correspondence with Kepler. In addition to his direct contributions, Schickard's machine was a precursor to more advanced and eventually electrical calculating machines.
                                 

Leibniz Wheel

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (also known as von Leibniz) was a prominent German mathematician, philosopher, physicist and statesman. Noted for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus, Gottfried Leibniz remains one of the greatest and most influential meta physicians  thinkers and logicians in history. He also invented the Leibniz wheel and suggested important theories about force, energy and time.

PUNCH CARDS

The use of punch cards for data processing played an important role in the early history of computers. It comes as a surprise that punch-card computer technology can be traced by to semi-automatic looms developed in France in the late 18th century.

Punch cards were essential to early computing, from the 1920's through the 1950's. The cards were used for data entry, storage and processing. Beginning in the late 1970's, however, this crucial early computing technology was rendered obsolete by the new medium of magnetic storage.

Charles Babbage

Babbage began in 1822 with what he called the difference engine, made to compute values of POLYNOMIAL FUNCTIONS. It was created to calculate a series of values automatically. By using the method of FINITE DIFFERENCES, it was possible to avoid the need for multiplication and division.

For a prototype difference engine, Babbage brought in JOSEPH CLEMENT to implement the design, in 1823. Clement worked to high standards, but his MACHINE TOOLS were particularly elaborate. Under the standard terms of business of the time, he could charge for their construction, and would also own them. He and Babbage fell out over costs around 1831.