History of computing hardware: Difference between revisions

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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===