SLIDE RULER
THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE
THE JACQUARD LOOM
THE ABACUS
2007-02-15 14:37:48 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
The Turning Machine
2007-02-15 14:42:33 · answer #1 · answered by Mathlady 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Abacus. The first real computer was created to count people during the 1940 census. It was three buildings--not in three buildings, but WAS three buildings. The programmers walked around inside manually throwing switches to change the program.
For more information about that first computer and the first computer bug, do a search for Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. She worked inside it from the beginning of the census till the end of World War II.
Oh, computer programming, not the hardware, owes something to the jacquard loom. That mechanical loom had programming cards which controlled the shuttles. These developed into the punch cards used for programming the first computers that were NOT programmed by a hand throwing a switch to the on or off position.
2007-02-15 14:49:15 · answer #2 · answered by loryntoo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They all have a part in its ancestry, but to different extents, and I comment on them in what I think is their ascending order of importance.
The slide rule has the least part. It can be used in a series of manual calculations, but so can the abacus, and the slide rule is the only "analog" device of the four. The others are more like the modern computer because they are "digital".
The abacus is really only a device for storing numbers. It is of no help in calculating, except that its design lets the user easily change it from one stored number to another.
The difference engine performs additions of stored numbers in a controlled sequence. This is a little like a modern computer, but very limited. There is no multiplication, or easily adaptable sequence of operations.
The Jacquard loom does not operate on numbers at all, but it exhibits an essential element of the modern computer. Each sequence of cards "instructs" it to weave a different pattern of cloth, and the sequences are easily constructed and exchanged. This gives the concept of a general-purpose machine, meeting each special purpose required from time to time.
2007-02-15 22:15:31 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I hope I don't have to choose one only. The Abacus and the Slide Rule have their places in the evolution of the modern computer.
2007-02-15 14:50:45 · answer #4 · answered by springday 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Abacus, man's earliest known calculator.
2007-02-15 14:43:27 · answer #5 · answered by Nancy 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
THE ABACUS
2007-02-15 14:41:17 · answer #6 · answered by spikeomega 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
what if it were a combination
2007-02-15 14:48:54 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋