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The '''history of computing hardware''' covers the developments from early simple devices to aid [[calculation]] to modern day [[computer]]s.
The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary [[arithmetic]] operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the resultsresult. Later, computers represented numbers in a continuous form (e.g. distance along a scale, rotation of a shaft, or a [[voltage]]). Numbers could also be represented in the form of digits, automatically manipulated by a mechanism. Although this approach generally required more complex mechanisms, it greatly increased the precision of results. The development of [[transistor]] technology and then the [[integrated circuit]] chip led to a series of breakthroughs, starting with transistor computers and then integrated circuit computers, causing digital computers to largely replace [[analog computer]]s. [[MOSFET|Metal-oxide-semiconductor]] (MOS) [[large-scale integration]] (LSI) then enabled [[semiconductor memory]] and the [[microprocessor]], leading to another key breakthrough, the miniaturized [[personal computer]] (PC), in the 1970s. The cost of computers gradually became so highlow that personal computers by the 1990s, and then [[mobile computing|mobile computers]] ([[smartphone]]s and [[tablet computer|tablets]]) in the 2000s, became ubiquitous.
==Early devices==
===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 BC. It is a dark brown length of bone, the [[fibula]] of a baboon. It has a series of tally marks carved in twothree 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 2729 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 electronicmechanical 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===
===Mechanical calculators===
In 17091609 [[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.
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