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Apr 26, 2024 · Abacus, calculating device, probably of Babylonian origin, that was long important in commerce. It is the ancestor of the modern calculating machine and computer. The abacus was in universal use in Europe in the Middle Ages, as well as in the Arab world and in Asia.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Engines of Calculation
- Bush and The Bomb
- Turing—Tested
- The First Modern Computers
- The Microelectronic Revolution
- Mainframes, Minis, and Micros
- Personal Computers
- The User Revolution
- From Nets to The Internet
- And Now Where?
Neither the abacus, nor the mechanical calculators constructed byPascal and Leibniz really qualified as computers. A calculator is adevice that makes it quicker and easier for people to do sums—but itneeds a human operator. A computer, on the other hand, is a machinethat can operate automatically, without any human help, by following aseries of sto...
Photo: Dr Vannevar Bush (1890–1974). Picture by Harris & Ewing, courtesy of US Library of Congress. The history of computing remembers colorful characters like Babbage,but others who played important—if supporting—roles are less wellknown. At the time when C-T-R was becoming IBM, the world's mostpowerful calculators were being developed by US gover...
Many of the pioneers of computing were hands-on experimenters—but by no means all of them.One of the key figures in the history of 20th-century computing, Alan Turing (1912–1954) wasa brilliant Cambridge mathematician whose major contributions were to the theoryof howcomputers processed information. In 1936, at the age of just 23, Turing wrotea gro...
The World War II years were a crucial period in the history ofcomputing, when powerful gargantuan computers began to appear. Justbefore the outbreak of the war, in 1938, German engineer Konrad Zuse (1910–1995) constructed his Z1, theworld's first programmable binary computer, in his parents' livingroom. The following year, American physicist JohnAt...
Vacuum tubes were a considerable advance on relay switches, butmachines like the ENIAC were notoriously unreliable. The modern termfor a problem that holds up a computer program is a "bug." Popularlegend has it that this word entered the vocabulary of computerprogrammers sometime in the 1950s when moths, attracted by the glowinglights of vacuum tub...
The arrival of the UNIVAC-1 had demonstrated big potential for using big "number-crunching" computers in big business applications, even though only a dozen were sold. In the early 1950s, IBM tested the value of this new business model by developing the 701, its first successful "mainframe" (large, general-purpose computer), built out of vacuum tub...
By 1974, Intel had launched a popular microprocessor known as the8080 and computer hobbyists were soon building home computers around it.The first was the MITS Altair 8800, built by EdRoberts. With its front panel covered in red LED lights andtoggle switches, it was a far cry from modern PCs and laptops. Even so,it sold by the thousand and earned R...
Fortunately for Apple, it had another great idea. One of the AppleII's strongest suits was its sheer "user-friendliness." For Steve Jobs,developing truly easy-to-use computers became a personal mission in theearly 1980s. What truly inspired him was a visit to PARC (Palo AltoResearch Center), a cutting-edge computer laboratory then run as adivision ...
Standardized PCs running standardized software brought a big benefitfor businesses: computers could be linked together into networks toshare information. At Xerox PARC in 1973, electrical engineer Bob Metcalfe(1946–) developed a new way oflinking computers "through the ether" (empty space) that he calledEthernet. A few years later, Metcalfe left Xe...
What of the future? The power of computers (the number of components packed on a chip) has doubled roughly every 18 months to 2 years since the 1960s. But the laws of physics are expected to bringa halt to Moore's Law, as this idea is known, and force us to explore entirely new ways of building computers. What will tomorrow's PCs look like? One lon...
Nov 11, 2020 · Learn about the history of Abacus, the most ancient calculating device known to mankind. Discover the journey of this remarkable device from 300 BC when it was first used by the Babylons to being perfected by the Japanese for modern-day use.
Revolution. Calculators Gallery. For centuries, calculators were the only machines to help us compute. Discover the calculating devices that predate the computer, including the abacus, slide rules, and some of the earliest mechanical calculators.
Feb 16, 2024 · Posted on February 16, 2024 By History of Computers. Step back in time and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of early computing devices. From the humble abacus to the groundbreaking ENIAC, these innovative machines paved the way for the digital revolution we know today.
The oldest written information about the abacus, appears to be from the Greek historian Herodotus (480-425 B.C.), who mentioned also, that the ancient Egyptians used the abacus. Salamis Tablet (Click to enlarge).
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Apr 12, 2023 · The early history of computing can be traced back to ancient civilizations like Babylon, Egypt, and China. The abacus, believed to have been invented around 2400 BCE, is considered the first computing device, enabling users to perform arithmetic calculations through a system of beads and rods.
