The 12 Biggest Breakthroughs In Computer Technology
1 ABACUS BECOMES FIRST MACHINE USED FOR COUNTING We might think of computers as sleek electronic devices with lots of programs and games But a computer is any machine that uses numbers to process information By this definition people have been using computers for thousands of years The first computers came about because people needed a better way to count Before then people counted using their fingers or pebbles As much as 30,000 years ago people made tally marks on bones or sticks But these methods only worked for small numbers People started to develop tools for counting larger numbers In approximately 190 CE the Chinese invented the first machine used for counting The Chinese abacus had a wooden frame 4 with beads that moved along metal rods The beads in each row have a specific value such as ones tens and hundreds The beads can be moved to add subtract multiply and divide This simple device set the stage for more complicated tools to come SALAMIS TABLET Before the abacus merchants used counting boards to calculate large sums One of the earliest known counting boards was the Salamis Tablet Babylonian traders started using it in approximately 300 BCE They drew lines on a slab of marble Columns of lines showed place value Merchants used the tablet to count add and subtract larger numbers
13 Number of vertical wires on a Chinese abacus Each wire has seven beads Introduced in approximately 190 CE in China Used to add subtract multiply and divide Led to more complex machines to process data The abacus is s ill used in The abacus is still used in The abacus is still used in parts of the world for quick parts of the world for quick parts of the world for quick parts of the world for quick math calculations ca cu a o s math calculations math calculations a 5
2 PASCAL INVENTS FIRST AUTOMATIC CALCULATOR A teenager invented the first automatic calculator In 1642 19-year-old Blaise Pascal created a device to help his father an accountant He made a shoe-box sized machine with eight wheels inside To enter a number the user turned a wheel The numbers showed in windows above Each wheel had 10 teeth If the first wheel rotated past the tenth tooth it would turn the second wheel one notch to the left This carried a one over to the tens column and put a zero in 6 The Pascaline calculator was also called an arithmetic machine
8 Number of wheels in the Pascaline meaning it could calculate numbers up to eight digits long Introduced by Blaise Pascal in 1642 in France First automatic adding machine Idea of rotating wheels still used in car odometers THE FIRST COMPUTERS The word computer originally referred to people Workers who spent their days making calculations were called computers They computed data related to navigation tide charts and astronomy The work was slow and repetitive Boredom sometimes led workers to make mistakes This led inventors to work on machines that could do the work faster and more accurately the ones column just like a person would do on paper Pascal’s invention became known as the Pascaline The box was expensive and hard to build It worked slowly If the gears did not move smoothly it could give wrong answers But it made scientists think about how to use machines to work with numbers It led to the creation of better faster calculators in the years to come The computer language Pascal is named after Blaise Pascal 7
