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BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING |
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Abacus Computer |
4000
B.C. to 1200 B.C.
Inhabitants of the first known civilization in Sumer keep
records of commercial transactions on clay tablets.
3000 B.C.
The abacus is invented in Babylonia.
250-230 B.C.
The Sieve of Eratosthenes is used to determine prime numbers.
1612-1614
John Napier uses the printed decimal point, devises logarithms
and uses numbered sticks, or Napiers Bones, for calculating.
1622
William Oughtred invents the circular slide rule onteh
basis of Napier's logarithms.
1623
William Schickard designs a calculating clock with a gear
driven mechanism to aid in multiplication of multi digit
numbers.
1642-1643 Blaise Pascal creates a gear driven adding machine.
1666 Samuel Morland produces a mechanical calculator that
can add and subtract.
1829 William Austin Burt patents an awkward but workable
typewriter, the first writing machine in America.
1838 Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail demonstrate elements
of the telegraph system.
1844 Samuel Morse sends a telegraph message from Washington
to Baltimore.
1854 George Boole publishes "An Investigation of
he Laws of Thought" describing a system for symbolic
and logical reasoning that will become the basis for computer
design.
1861 A transcontinental telegraph line connects the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents and patents the telephone.
1882 William S. Burroughs leaves his bank clerk's job
determined to invent an adding machine.
1893 The first four-function calculator is invented.
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GO TO THE NEXT ERA . . . the 19th century
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