Editing History of computing hardware (section)

==Early devices==
{{See also|Timeline of computing hardware before 1950}}

===Ancient and medieval===
[[File:Os d'Ishango IRSNB.JPG|thumb|upright=0.6|left|The [[Ishango bone]] is thought to be a Paleolithic tally stick.{{efn|The [[Ishango bone]] is a [[bone tool]], dated to the [[Upper Paleolithic]] era, about 18,000 to 20,000&nbsp;BC. It is a dark brown length of bone, the [[fibula]] of a baboon. It has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool. It was found in 1960 in Belgian Congo.<ref>{{cite web |first=Phill |last=Schultz |date=7 September 1999 |publisher=University of Western Australia School of Mathematics |url=https://www.maths.uwa.edu.au/~schultz/3M3/history.html |title=A very brief history of pure mathematics: The Ishango Bone |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080721075947/http://www.maths.uwa.edu.au/~schultz/3M3/history.html |archive-date=2008-07-21}}</ref>}} ]]
[[File:Abacus 6.png|thumb|right|[[Suanpan]] (The number represented on this abacus is 6,302,715,408.)]]
Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using [[one-to-one correspondence]] with [[finger-counting|fingers]]. The earliest counting device was probably a form of [[tally stick]]. The [[Lebombo bone]] from the mountains between [[Eswatini]] and [[South Africa]] may be the oldest known mathematical artifact.<ref name="Selin2008">{{cite book |first=Helaine|last=Selin|title=Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kt9DIY1g9HYC&pg=PA1356|date=12 March 2008 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-1-4020-4559-2|page=1356|bibcode=2008ehst.book.....S|access-date=2020-05-27}}</ref> It dates from 35,000 BCE and consists of 29 distinct notches that were deliberately cut into a [[baboon]]'s [[fibula]].<ref>{{mathworld |title=Lebombo Bone |urlname=LebomboBone |author=Pegg, Ed Jr. |author-link=Ed Pegg Jr. |ref=none}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| last=Darling| first=David| title=The Universal Book of Mathematics From Abracadabra to Zeno's Paradoxes| year=2004| publisher=John Wiley & Sons| isbn= 978-0-471-27047-8}}</ref> Later record keeping aids throughout the [[Fertile Crescent]] included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers.{{efn|According to {{harvnb|Schmandt-Besserat|1981}}, these clay containers contained tokens, the total of which were the count of objects being transferred. The containers thus served as something of a [[bill of lading]] or an accounts book. In order to avoid breaking open the containers, first, clay impressions of the tokens were placed on the outside of the containers, for the count; the shapes of the impressions were abstracted into stylized marks; finally, the abstract marks were systematically used as numerals; these numerals were finally formalized as numbers. Eventually (Schmandt-Besserat estimates it took 5000 years.<ref>{{cite web |last=Schmandt-Besserat |first=Denise |title=The Evolution of Writing |url=https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/files/2014/01/evolution_writing.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130084757/http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ghazal/Chap1/dsb/chapter1.html |archive-date=2012-01-30 |url-status=live}}</ref>) the marks on the outside of the containers were all that were needed to convey the count, and the clay containers evolved into clay tablets with marks for the count.}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Eleanor |last=Robson |author-link=Eleanor Robson |year=2008 |title=Mathematics in Ancient Iraq |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-09182-2 |quote-page=5 |quote=calculi were in use in Iraq for primitive accounting systems as early as 3200–3000 BCE, with commodity-specific counting representation systems. Balanced accounting was in use by 3000–2350 BCE, and a [[sexagesimal number system]] was in use 2350–2000 BCE.}}</ref>{{efn|Robson has recommended at least one supplement to {{harvp|Schmandt-Besserat|1981}}, e.g., a review, {{cite journal |doi=10.1126/science.260.5114.1670 |last=Englund |first=R. |date=1993 |title=The origins of script |journal=Science |volume=260 |issue=5114 |pages=1670–1671 |pmid=17810210}}<ref>{{cite web |first=Eleanor |last=Robson |title=Bibliography of Mesopotamian Mathematics |url=https://it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/erbiblio.html#genhist |access-date=2016-07-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160616161807/http://it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/erbiblio.html#genhist |url-status=dead |archive-date=2016-06-16}}</ref>}} The use of [[counting rods]] is one example. The [[abacus]] was early used for arithmetic tasks. What we now call the [[Roman abacus]] was used in [[Babylonia]] as early as {{circa|2700}}–2300 BC. Since then, many other forms of reckoning boards or tables have been invented. In a medieval European [[counting house]], a checkered cloth would be placed on a table, and markers moved around on it according to certain rules, as an aid to calculating sums of money.

Several [[analog computer]]s were constructed in ancient and medieval times to perform astronomical calculations. These included the [[astrolabe]] and [[Antikythera mechanism]] from the [[Hellenistic world]] (c. 150–100 BC).{{sfn|Lazos|1994}} In [[Roman Egypt]], [[Hero of Alexandria]] (c. 10–70 AD) made mechanical devices including [[Automaton|automata]] and a programmable [[cart]].<ref>{{citation |title=A programmable robot from 60 AD |first=Noel |last=Sharkey |date=4 July 2007 |volume=2611 |publisher=New Scientist |url=https://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-robot-from-60ad.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171213205451/https://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/07/programmable-robot-from-60ad.html|archive-date=13 December 2017}}</ref> The steam-powered automatic flute described by the ''[[Book of Ingenious Devices]]'' (850) by the Persian-Baghdadi [[Banū Mūsā brothers]] may have been the first programmable device.<ref name=Koetsier>{{Citation |last1=Koetsier |first1=Teun  |year=2001 |title=On the prehistory of programmable machines: musical automata, looms, calculators |journal=Mechanism and Machine Theory |volume=36 |issue=5 |pages=589–603 |publisher=Elsevier |doi=10.1016/S0094-114X(01)00005-2 |postscript=.}}</ref>

Other early mechanical devices used to perform one or another type of calculations include the [[planisphere]] and other mechanical computing devices invented by [[Al-Biruni]] (c. AD 1000); the [[equatorium]] and universal latitude-independent astrolabe by [[Al-Zarqali]] (c. AD 1015); the astronomical analog computers of other medieval [[Islamic astronomy|Muslim astronomers]] and engineers; and the astronomical [[clock tower]] of [[Su Song]] (1094) during the [[Song dynasty]]. The [[castle clock]], a [[hydropower]]ed mechanical [[astronomical clock]] invented by [[Ismail al-Jazari]] in 1206, was the first [[Computer programming|programmable]] analog computer.{{Disputed inline|for=The cited source doesn't support the claim, and the claim is misleading.|date=June 2022}}<ref name="Ancient Discoveries">{{citation|title=Episode 11: Ancient Robots|work=[[Ancient Discoveries]]|publisher=[[History Channel]]|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjbaQl0ad8|url-status=dead |access-date=2008-09-06|archive-date=2014-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301151115/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxjbaQl0ad8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=Howard R. |title=Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction |page=184 |date=1997 |publisher=University of Texas press |isbn=978-0-292-78149-8 |location=Austin}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |author-link=Donald Routledge Hill |last=Hill |first=Donald Routledge |title=Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East |magazine=Scientific American |date=May 1991 |pages=64–69}} ([[cf.]] {{cite web |last=Hill |first=Donald Routledge |title=IX. Mechanical Engineering |url= http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/HistoryofSciences.htm |work=History of Sciences in the Islamic World |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071225091836/http://home.swipnet.se/islam/articles/HistoryofSciences.htm |archive-date=2007-12-25 |url-status=dead}})</ref> [[Ramon Llull]] invented the Lullian Circle: a notional machine for calculating answers to philosophical questions (in this case, to do with Christianity) via logical combinatorics. This idea was taken up by [[Gottfried Leibniz|Leibniz]] centuries later, and is thus one of the founding elements in computing and [[information science]].

=== Renaissance calculating tools===
Scottish mathematician and physicist [[John Napier]] discovered that the multiplication and division of numbers could be performed by the addition and subtraction, respectively, of the [[logarithm]]s of those numbers. While producing the first logarithmic tables, Napier needed to perform many tedious multiplications. It was at this point that he designed his '[[Napier's bones]]', an abacus-like device that greatly simplified calculations that involved multiplication and division.{{efn|A Spanish implementation of [[Napier's bones]] (1617), is documented in {{harvnb|Montaner|Simon|1887|pp=19–20}}.}}

[[File:Sliderule 2005.png|thumb|upright=1.15|left|A modern slide rule]]
Since [[real number]]s can be represented as distances or intervals on a line, the [[slide rule]] was invented in the 1620s, shortly after Napier's work, to allow multiplication and division operations to be carried out significantly faster than was previously possible.{{sfn|Kells|Kern|Bland|1943|p=92}} [[Edmund Gunter]] built a calculating device with a single logarithmic scale at the [[University of Oxford]]. His device greatly simplified arithmetic calculations, including multiplication and division. [[William Oughtred]] greatly improved this in 1630 with his circular slide rule. He followed this up with the modern slide rule in 1632, essentially a combination of two [[Gunter's scale|Gunter rule]]s, held together with the hands. Slide rules were used by generations of engineers and other mathematically involved professional workers, until the invention of the [[pocket calculator]].{{sfn|Kells|Kern|Bland|1943|p=82}}

===Mechanical calculators===
In 1609, [[Guidobaldo del Monte]] made a mechanical multiplier to calculate fractions of a degree. Based on a system of four gears, the rotation of an index on one quadrant corresponds to 60 rotations of another index on an opposite quadrant.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Domenico Bertolini|last=Meli|date=1992|doi=10.1163/182539192x00019 |title=Guidobaldo Dal Monte and the Archimedean Revival |journal=Nuncius|number=1|pages=3–34|volume=7}}</ref> Thanks to this machine, errors in the calculation of first, second, third and quarter degrees can be avoided. Guidobaldo is the first to document the use of gears for mechanical calculation.

[[Wilhelm Schickard]], a German [[polymath]], designed a calculating machine in 1623 which combined a mechanized form of Napier's rods with the world's first mechanical adding machine built into the base. Because it made use of a single-tooth gear there were circumstances in which its carry mechanism would jam.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1997|p=128}} "...the single-tooth gear, like that used by Schickard, would not do for a general carry mechanism. The single-tooth gear works fine if the carry is only going to be propagated a few places but, if the carry has to be propagated several places along the accumulator, the force needed to operate the machine would be of such magnitude that it would do damage to the delicate gear works."</ref> A fire destroyed at least one of the machines in 1624 and it is believed Schickard was too disheartened to build another.

[[File:Pascaline calculator.jpg|thumb|View through the back of [[Pascal's calculator]]. [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]] invented his machine in 1642.]]
In 1642, while still a teenager, [[Blaise Pascal]] started some pioneering work on calculating machines and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Machine_d%E2%80%99arithm%C3%A9tique |last=Pascal |first=Blaise |title=La Machine d'arithmétique |date=1645 |language=fr}}</ref> he invented a [[mechanical calculator]].{{sfn|Marguin|1994|p=48}}{{sfn|Ocagne|1893|p=245}} He built twenty of these machines (called [[Pascal's calculator]] or Pascaline) in the following ten years.{{sfn|Mourlevat|1988|p=12}} Nine Pascalines have survived, most of which are on display in European museums.{{efn|All nine machines are described in {{harvnb|Vidal|Vogt|2011}}.}} A continuing debate exists over whether Schickard or Pascal should be regarded as the "inventor of the mechanical calculator" and the range of issues to be considered is discussed elsewhere.<ref>{{cite web|first=Jim|last=Falk|title=Schickard versus Pascal - an empty debate?|url=https://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal|access-date=2014-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408215848/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal|archive-date=2014-04-08 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Napier's calculating tables.JPG|thumb|left|A set of [[John Napier]]'s calculating tables from around 1680]]
[[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz]] invented the [[stepped reckoner]] and his [[Leibniz wheel|famous stepped drum mechanism]] around 1672. He attempted to create a machine that could be used not only for addition and subtraction but would use a moveable carriage to enable multiplication and division. Leibniz once said "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labour of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used."{{sfn|Smith|1929|pp=180–181}} However, Leibniz did not incorporate a fully successful carry mechanism. Leibniz also described the [[binary numeral system]],{{sfn|Leibniz|1703}} a central ingredient of all modern computers. However, up to the 1940s, many subsequent designs (including [[Charles Babbage]]'s machines of 1822 and even [[ENIAC]] of 1945) were based on the decimal system.{{efn|[[Binary-coded decimal]] (BCD) is a numeric representation, or [[character encoding]], which is still widely used.}}

[[File:Arithmometer - Detail of Multiplier pre 1851.jpg|thumb|Detail of an arithmometer built before 1851. The one-digit multiplier cursor (ivory top) is the leftmost cursor.]]

Around 1820, [[Charles Xavier Thomas|Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar]] created what would over the rest of the century become the first successful, mass-produced mechanical calculator, the Thomas [[Arithmometer]]. It could be used to add and subtract, and with a moveable carriage the operator could also multiply, and divide by a process of long multiplication and long division.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2005 |title=Discovering the Arithmometer |url=https://www.cis.cornell.edu/boom/2005/ProjectArchive/arithometer/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060913173424/http://www.cis.cornell.edu/boom/2005/ProjectArchive/arithometer/index.html |archive-date=2006-09-13 |access-date=2023-08-26 |website=[[Cornell University]]}}</ref> It utilised a stepped drum similar in conception to that invented by Leibniz. Mechanical calculators remained in use until the 1970s.

===Punched-card data processing===
In 1804, French weaver [[Joseph Marie Jacquard]] developed [[Jacquard loom|a loom]] in which the pattern being woven was controlled by a paper tape constructed from [[punched cards]]. The paper tape could be changed without changing the mechanical design of the loom. This was a landmark achievement in programmability. His machine was an improvement over similar weaving looms. Punched cards were preceded by punch bands, as in the machine proposed by [[Basile Bouchon]]. These bands would inspire information recording for automatic pianos and more recently [[numerical control]] machine tools.

[[File:Early SSA accounting operations.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[IBM]] punched-card accounting machines, 1936]]
In the late 1880s, the American [[Herman Hollerith]] invented data storage on [[punched card]]s that could then be read by a machine.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hollerith.html |title=Herman Hollerith |website=Columbia University Computing History |publisher=Columbia University ACIS |access-date=2010-01-30 |archive-date=2011-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110513134315/http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hollerith.html |url-status=live}}</ref> To process these punched cards, he invented the [[tabulating machine|tabulator]] and the [[keypunch]] machine. His machines used electromechanical [[relay]]s and [[Mechanical counter|counters]].<ref>{{cite book|author1-link=Leon E. Truesdell |last=Truesdell |first=Leon E. |title=The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census 1890–1940|pages=47–55 |year=1965 |publisher=US GPO}}</ref> Hollerith's method was used in the [[1890 United States census]].<!-- The Census Bureau is not "an independent 3rd party" source – as required by Wikipedia – for Census Bureau performance claims. FOLLOWING CLAIM DELETED. -> and the completed results were "... finished months ahead of schedule and far under budget".<ref>{{cite web |title=Tabulation and Processing – History – U.S. Census Bureau |first=Jason |last=Gauthier |url=https://www.census.gov/history/www/innovations/technology/tabulation_and_processing.html |access-date=11 August 2015}}</ref>--> That census was processed two years faster than the prior census had been.<ref name="11th census report">{{cite book |title=Report of the Commissioner of Labor In Charge of The Eleventh Census to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1895 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[United States Government Publishing Office]] |date=29 July 1895 |oclc=867910652|hdl=2027/osu.32435067619882 |page=9}} "You may confidently look for the rapid reduction of the force of this office after the 1st of October, and the entire cessation of clerical work during the present calendar year. ... The condition of the work of the Census Division and the condition of the final reports show clearly that the work of the Eleventh Census will be completed at least two years earlier than was the work of the Tenth Census." — Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor in Charge</ref> Hollerith's company eventually became the core of [[International Business Machines|IBM]].

By 1920, electromechanical tabulating machines could add, subtract, and print accumulated totals.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1920.html |website=IBM Archives |title=1920 |date=23 January 2003 |access-date=2020-12-01 |archive-date=2020-10-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029080349/https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1920.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Machine functions were directed <!-- other than the calculators (602, 604...) unit record machines are not programmed – there is no sequence of operations on their control panels. See [[plugboard]]--> by inserting dozens of wire jumpers into removable [[plugboard|control panel]]s. When the United States instituted [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]] in 1935, IBM punched-card systems were used to process records of 26 million workers.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/decade_1930.html |website=IBM Archives |title=Chronological History of IBM: 1930s |date=23 January 2003 |access-date=2020-12-01 |archive-date=2020-12-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203145246/https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/decade_1930.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Punched cards became ubiquitous in industry and government for accounting and administration.

[[Leslie Comrie]]'s articles on punched-card methods<ref>Leslie Comrie [https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1928MNRAS..88..506C (1928) On the Construction of Tables by Interpolation]</ref> and [[W. J. Eckert]]'s publication of ''Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation'' in 1940, described punched-card techniques sufficiently advanced to solve some differential equations or perform multiplication and division using floating-point representations, all on punched cards and [[unit record equipment|unit record machines]].{{sfn|Eckert|1935}} Such machines were used during World War II for cryptographic statistical processing,<ref>{{citation | editor-last = Erskine | editor-first = Ralph | editor2-last = Smith | editor2-first = Michael | editor2-link = Michael Smith (newspaper reporter) | title = The Bletchley Park Codebreakers | publisher = Biteback Publishing Ltd | year = 2011 | page = 134| isbn = 978-184954078-0}} Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001</ref> as well as a vast number of administrative uses. The Astronomical Computing Bureau of [[Columbia University]] performed astronomical calculations representing the state of the art in [[computing]].<ref>{{cite web |author=Frank da Cruz |title=A Chronology of Computing at Columbia University |website=Columbia University Computing History |publisher=Columbia University |url=https://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/#timeline |access-date=2023-08-31|archive-date=2023-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230822234349/http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/#timeline |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Eckert|1940|pp=101–114}}

===Calculators===
{{Main|Calculator}}
[[File:Curta01.JPG|thumb|upright|The [[Curta]] calculator could also do multiplication and division.]]
By the 20th century, earlier mechanical calculators, cash registers, accounting machines, and so on were redesigned to use electric motors, with gear position as the representation for the state of a variable. The word "computer" was a job title assigned to primarily women who used these calculators to perform mathematical calculations.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Light|first=Jennifer S. |date=July 1999|title=When Computers Were Women|journal=Technology and Culture|volume=40|issue=3|pages=455–483 |s2cid=108407884 |doi=10.1353/tech.1999.0128}}</ref> By the 1920s, British scientist [[Lewis Fry Richardson]]'s interest in weather prediction led him to propose [[human computer]]s and [[numerical analysis]] to model the weather; to this day, the most powerful computers on [[Earth]] are needed to adequately model its weather using the [[Navier–Stokes equations]].{{sfn|Hunt|1998}}

Companies like [[Friden, Inc.|Friden]], [[Marchant Calculator]] and [[Monroe Calculator Company|Monroe]] made desktop mechanical calculators from the 1930s that could add, subtract, multiply and divide.<ref>{{cite web |title=Friden Model STW-10 Electro-Mechanical Calculator |url=https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/fridenstw.html |access-date=11 August 2015|archive-date=2011-05-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514070335/http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/fridenstw.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1948, the [[Curta calculator|Curta]] was introduced by Austrian inventor [[Curt Herzstark]]. It was a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator and as such, a descendant of [[Gottfried Leibniz]]'s [[Stepped Reckoner]] and [[Charles Xavier Thomas|Thomas]]' [[Arithmometer]].

The world's first ''all-electronic desktop'' calculator was the British [[Bell Punch]] [[Sumlock ANITA calculator|ANITA]], released in 1961.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Simple and Silent |magazine=Office Magazine |date=December 1961 |page=1244}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title='Anita' der erste tragbare elektonische Rechenautomat |trans-title='Anita' the first portable electronic computer |magazine=Buromaschinen Mechaniker |date=November 1961 |page=207}}</ref> It used [[vacuum tube]]s, cold-cathode tubes and [[Dekatron]]s in its circuits, with 12 cold-cathode [[Nixie tube|"Nixie"]] tubes for its display. The [[Sumlock ANITA calculator|ANITA]] sold well since it was the only electronic desktop calculator available, and was silent and quick. The tube technology was superseded in June 1963 by the U.S. manufactured [[Friden, Inc.|Friden]] EC-130, which had an all-transistor design, a stack of four 13-digit numbers displayed on a {{convert|5|in|cm|adj=on}} [[Cathode-ray tube|CRT]], and introduced [[reverse Polish notation]] (RPN).