NATS 1700 6.0 COMPUTERS,  INFORMATION  AND  SOCIETY Lecture 7: A Short History of Ancient Computing | Previous | Next | Syllabus | Selected References | Home | | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |   Introduction As recently as the early '50s, the word 'computer' primarily referred to a person performing computations. And computation, in one form or another, seems to have been practiced in all civilizations as far back as we can see. It is plausible to conjecture that as nomadic life gave way to settlements, and agriculture began (about a dozen centuries ago), so did the need to establish boundaries and to measure fields, to predict the right times for sowing and harvesting, and in general to explore and represent the world. Browse through Mathematics History or Mathematics History For easy reference, here is a short timeline taken from the Chronology of Historical Events in Computing at Hofstra University. Unfortunately, this link is dead. You may want to check similar references:   Key Events in the History of Computing,  Overviews of the History of Computing,  etc. A very good Timeline of Computing History, with plenty of illustrations, has been prepared by the Computer Society "to commemorate the 50th year of modern computing." Finally, Stephen White maintains an up-to-date Brief History of Computing. 6000 B.C. [ca]: Ishango bone type of tally stick in use 4000-1200 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 1800 B.C.: Well-developed additive number system in use in Egypt 1300 B.C.: Direct evidence exists as to the Chinese using a positional number system 600 B.C. [ca.]: Major developments start to take place in Chinese arithmetic 250-230 B.C.: The Sieve of Eratosthenes is used to determine prime numbers 79 A.D. [ca.]: Antikythera Device, when set correctly according to latitude and day of the week, gives alternating 29­ and 30­day lunar months 800 [ca.]: Chinese start to use a zero, probably introduced from India 850 [ca.]: al-Khowarizmi publishes his Arithmetic 1000 [ca.]: Gerbert describes an abacus using apices 1120: Adelard of Bath publishes Dixit Algorismi, his translation of al-Khowarizmi's Arithmetic 1200: First minted jetons appear in Italy 1202: Fibonacci publishes his Liber Abaci 1220: Alexander De Villa Dei publishes Carmen de Algorismo 1250: Sacrobosco publishes his Algorismus Vulgaris 1300 [ca.]: Modern wire-and-bead abacus replaces the older Chinese calculating rods 1392: Geoffrey Chaucer publishes the first English­language description on the uses of an astrolabe 1500 [ca.]: Inca quipu reaches its highest form of development. Use of quadrant gaining popularity in Europe 1542: Robert Record publishes his English-language book on arithmetic You may enjoy reading what David Eppstein, a mathematician at the University of California at Irvine, has to say about the ancient Egyptian Fractions. Throughout the course you will encounter the word algorithm. Its origin can be traced to the name Al­Khowarizmi (see timeline above). An algorithm is a set of well-defined instructions for executing mathematical or computational operations needed to solve a problem. Read Allen B Downey's  review,  of David Berlinski, The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World, Harcourt Brace, 2000. There are several virtual museums of computing. Find and visit some of them.   Topics "The first mechanical calculator (indeed, the world's first digital computer) was the abacus, whose exact origins are lost in prehistory; however, counting devices were in use in the Far East by 450 BC.... Many early civilizations developed analogue or digital systems for measurement or calculation. The megaliths of Stonehenge and other stone circles were erected about 2000 BC to predict important astronomical events. Polynesians in outrigger canoes fitted with sails navigated thousands of kilometers of the Pacific Ocean using direct observation of natural phenomena, sometimes supplemented with 'maps' made of knotted cords attached to a wooden frame. In the sixteenth century, the Incas of Peru developed the quipu, an intricate pattern of knotted chords, for calculation." (Ian McNeil, ed., An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology, London, Routledge, 1990, 1996, p. 697). Many of these 'primitive' devices were not primitive at all. The abacus is not only still in use in many parts of the world, but in the hands of an experienced user it can hold its own against modern mechanical and even electronic calculators. In its disarming simplicity it embodies more advanced and efficient arithmetical algorithms than we learn today in school. Check  The Abacus: The Art of Calculating with Beads.  And if you thought the abacus was merely a historical curiosity, here is a scanning tunneling microscope image of the world's smallest abacus, that scientists at the Zurich laboratory of the IBM Research Division built "with individual molecules as beads with a diameter of less than one nanometer, one millionth of a millimeter"   IBM's Smallest Abacus

You may want to study the  Chisenbop Tutorial.   "Chisenbop is a method of doing basic arithmetic using your fingers. It is attributed to the Korean tradition, but it is probably extremely old, as the soroban and abacus use very similar methods. Probably these other devices were derived from finger counting." This example is important, because computational technology does not need to be expressed in artifacts: human fingers can serve that purpose well. The astronomical alignments of many ancient monuments are so precise that their builders must have had a remarkable amount of observational and computational skills, and archeologists and astronomers have teamed up and started a new science, Archeoastronomy, to study them. A couple of exciting, yet, scientifically rigorous, references are Edwin Krupp, ed., In Search of Ancient Astronomies, London: Chatto & Windus, 1979; and K Brechter & M Feirtag, eds., Astronomy of the Ancients, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1981. More generally, in addition to the need to keep track of the seasons, the problem of keeping time on a daily basis has preoccupied probably every civilization. A beautiful presentation is offered by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology under the title  A Walk Through Time: The Evolution of Time Measurement.  "We know little about the details of timekeeping in prehistoric eras, but wherever we turn up records and artifacts, we usually discover that in every culture, some people were preoccupied with measuring and recording the passage of time. Ice-age hunters in Europe over 20,000 years ago scratched lines and gouged holes in sticks and bones, possibly counting the days between phases of the moon. Five thousand years ago, Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley in today's Iraq had a calendar that divided the year into 30-day months, divided the day into 12 periods (each corresponding to 2 of our hours), and divided these periods into 30 parts (each like 4 of our minutes)." We could go on, but these few examples, and the references cited, should be sufficient to establish, on a pretty firm basis, that the need to compute and the tools to satisfy such need are plainly visible in all of recorded history and in the glimpses we have of prehistory. As we shall see in the next lectures, this need to compute grew with time, as science and technology grew and demanded more and more sophisticated implements. The history of computing technology is particularly suited to demonstrate the mutual influences that science and technology have had and continue to have on each other.   Questions and ExercisesAssignment Read  Base Valued Numbers,  where you will learn, from a historical perspective, about number systems based on values other then 10. Using only your own words (i.e. without resorting to quotations or paraphrases) define and explain Shannon's concept of information. In many situations you are asked routine questions such as "what's your name?", "how old are you?", "where were you born?", "where do you live?", etc.  For each question indicate, qualitatively, how much information (according to Shannon) is contained in your answers, and explain why.   Picture Credit: IBM Zurich Laboratory Last Modification Date: 07 July 2008