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History of Computing
 Prehistoric People Groups
• Used fingers for counting, and length of hands and
arms for measurements
• Kept track of larger numbers, such as number of
animals in herds, using small pebbles
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History of Computing
 People of Egypt, China and ancient Babylonia
• By 3000 B.C., had developed written symbols to
represent numbers
• Performed simple arithmetic operations applied to
government and business tasks
• Developed geometry to solve practical engineering and
agricultural problems (applied mathematics)
• Some uses of mathematics included measuring time,
straight lines, counting money, and computing taxes
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History of Computing
 Practical examples of geometry in ancient Egypt
• Land surveying and navigation
• Egypt was the “bread basket” of the world
People of Egypt, China and ancient
• Annual Nile River flooding fertilized plains but
Babylonia
made it difficult to mark property
•By 3000 B.C.,
had developed
• Geometry
used to survey fields and reestablish
written symbols
to represent
property
boundaries
numbers
• Navigation required for food distribution
•Performed
simple of
arithmetic
• Building
pyramids required extensive measurements
operations applied to government
and business tasks
•Developed geometry to solve
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History of Computing
 Greece
• Between 600 and 300 B.C., inherited mathematical knowledge
from Egypt and Babylon
• Were the first people to separate mathematics from application to
practical problems
• Developed abstract and logical mathematical reasoning
• Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, and others developed
extensive knowledge of geometry, trigonometry, algebra,
astronomy and physics
 Rome
• Applied mathematics to practical tasks in business, civil
engineering, and military work
• Had little interest in study of pure mathematics
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History of Computing
 Middle Ages
• No new mathematical advances in Europe for hundreds of years
after fall of Rome in 476 A.D.
• Arabs preserved mathematical knowledge developed by Greeks
and Romans and expanded algebraic concepts
• Concept of zero and decimal number system developed in India
and used by Arabs
• After 1100, growing commerce in Europe required an easier
numbering system for merchants than Roman numerals
• Europeans started using decimal number system and studying
Arabic mathematical texts
• During late Middle Ages, European mathematicians such as
Fibonacci contributed to algebra and geometry
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History of Computing
 Renaissance
• From 1400’s to 1600’s exploration of new lands required improved
mathematics to support navigation
• Development of capitalism and trading led to development of
faster and better methods of computation
• Invention of mechanical printing press allowed rapid spread of
new math texts
• Many advances occurred in algebra, including in the 1500’s
Francois Viete’s introduction of letters used to stand for unknown
numbers in formulas and equations (use of variables, important in
computer science)
c2 = a2 + b2
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History of Computing
 Renaissance (continued)
• Astronomers Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler advanced
mathematics through their work in astronomy
• Scottish mathematician John Napier invented logarithms and slide
rule that took advantage of fact that addition is easier than
multiplication:
log (a * b) = log a + log b
• Logarithms are inverse of power function:
log2 8 = 3 because 23 = 8
• Slide rule used extensively by students, engineers, scientists,
military, and others until largely replaced by hand-held calculators,
starting with HP models in 1970’s
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History of Computing
 Here’s Robby the Robot holding a giant-sized slide rule:
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History of Computing
 But the actual size was hand-held, with a middle sliding
rule:
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History of Computing
 Renaissance (continued)
• Rene Descartes developed analytic geometry, and Blaise Pascal
and Pierre Fermat developed mathematical theories of probability
• Pascal developed version of mechanical calculator called
“Arithmometer” to improve speed and accuracy of calculations,
especially needed in business
• Modern computer programming language named after Pascal
• Toward end of period, Sir Isaac Newton was a main inventor of
calculus, marking beginning of modern mathematics
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History of Computing
 1700’ and 1800’s
• Wide applications of calculus developed, especially in physics and
mathematical analysis
• Many inventions during Industrial Revolution led to automation of
tasks formerly done by hand
• Joseph-Marie Jacquard of France invented automatic loom in
1804, improving on earlier punch card concept
• Holes in card controlled which doors opened or closed for thread
patterning
• This invention was instrumental in development of modern
computers
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History of Computing
 Jacquard Loom:
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 1700’ and 1800’s – Charles Babbage
• A prominent English mathematician with interest in inventing
calculating machinery
• In 1800’s England’s sea power required accurate computations for
calculating cannon shots from moving ships
• Babbage obtained 10 years of funding to develop a solution for this
problem, but never implemented one
• Invented a “Difference Engine” in 1821 to produce math tables
• Continued investing time, fortune, and government funding on a
general device for any kind of calculation and symbol
manipulation
• Unfortunately never able to complete any designs for his general
“Analytic Engine,” which had some characteristics of modern
computers
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History of Computing
 1700’s and 1800’s – Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace
• Daughter of the famous English poet Lord Byron, and trained in
mathematics and science
• Heard Babbage’s ideas for “Analytic Engine” at a dinner party, and
later translated and added notes to an article about the machine
• Over a period of years, corresponded by letter with Babbage,
discussing ideas for use of engine
• Predicted in 1843 engine could be used for scientific use as well as
practical uses such as composing music and producing graphics
• Considered to have invented the first “computer program” for her
idea of how engine could be used to calculate Bernoulli numbers
• In 1979, U.S. Department of Defense developed programming
language named Ada in her honor
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History of Computing
 Late 1800’s and 1900’s - Herman Hollerith
• Considered father of modern automatic computation
• Worked on 1880 U.S. census and saw need for mechanization of
recording and tabulating process as immigration increased
• Won design competition for 1890 census by inventing equipment
to tabulate and sort punched cards similar to ones used on Jacquard
loom
• Founded company Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company
(CTR) that later changed name to IBM in 1924
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History of Computing
 Late 1800’s and 1900’s - Herman Hollerith (cont’d.)
• In Hollerith’s own words (“An Electric Tabulating System,” 1889):
“Few, who have not come directly in contact with a census office, can form
any adequate idea of the labor involved in the compilation of a census of
50,000,000 persons, as was the case in the last census, or of over
62,000,000, as will be the case in the census to be taken in June, 1890…
Although our population is constantly increasing, and although at each
census more complicated combinations and greater detail are required in
the various compilations, still, up to the present time, substantially the
original method of compilation has been [-239-] employed; that of making
tally-marks in small squares and then adding and counting such tallymarks. While engaged in work upon the tenth census, the writer's attention
was called to the methods employed in the tabulation of population
statistics and the enormous expense involved. These methods were at the
time described as "barbarous…” Some machine ought to be devised for
the purpose of facilitating such tabulations.”
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History of Computing
 1900’s
• First modern computers developed in 1940’s
• Government and military requirements drove many early advances
in computing:
- Accurate artillery tables needed for WWII, 1939-1945
- Automatic computations needed for atomic bomb development
• Increasingly larger and more powerful computing machines were
developed
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History of Computing
 1900’s – ENIAC
• Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, world’s first
electronic digital computer, developed by Army Ordnance to
compute WWII ballistic firing tables
• Completed in 1945, served as prototype for development of most
other modern computers
• Weighed over 30 tons, and stored a maximum of twenty 10-digit
decimal numbers
• Included logic circuitry design now standard in computers
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 1900’s – ENIAC
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 1954 - IBM's Naval Ordinance Research Calculator, the first
“supercomputer”
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 1954 – Tubes in IBM's NORC
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