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The history of computing hardware spans the developments from early devices used for simple calculations to today's complex computers, encompassing advancements in both analog and digital technology. The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary arithmetic ...
A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or (historically) a simulation such as an analog computer or a slide rule.
This was a specialized counting machine used for cipher-breaking, not a general-purpose calculator or computer, but a logic device using a combination of electronics and relay logic. It read data optically at 2000 characters per second from two closed loops of paper tape. It was significant as it was the forerunner of Colossus.
The first American-made pocket-sized calculator, the Bowmar 901B (popularly termed The Bowmar Brain), measuring 5.2 by 3.0 by 1.5 inches (132 mm × 76 mm × 38 mm), came out in the Autumn of 1971, with four functions and an eight-digit red LED display, for US$240, while in August 1972 the four-function Sinclair Executive became the first ...
The Comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the United States by Dorr Felt in 1887.. A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all of the digits of a number simultaneously, using as many fingers as required, making ...
Edith Clarke invents the "Clarke calculator", a graphical calculator for solving line equations involving hyperbolic function, allowing electrical engineers to simplify calculations for inductance and capacity in power transmission lines [13] 1924: Japanese engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi began a research program on electronic television. [14] 1925
Foreground: 'operational cards', for inputting instructions; background: 'variable cards', for inputting data. Babbage's first attempt at a mechanical computing device, the Difference Engine, was a special-purpose machine designed to tabulate logarithms and trigonometric functions by evaluating finite differences to create approximating ...
Babbage's devices could be reprogrammed to solve new problems by the entry of new data and act upon previous calculations within the same series of instructions. Ada Lovelace took this concept one step further, by creating a program for the Analytical Engine to calculate Bernoulli numbers, a complex calculation requiring a recursive algorithm ...