In what century was the first mechanical calculator created? Who invented the calculator. The history of its development. The emergence of Windows

who invented the calculator? and got the best answer

Answer from Peganov Yuri™[guru]
In 1623, Wilhelm Schickard came up with the "Counting Clock" - the first mechanical calculator, who could perform four arithmetic operations.
The device was called a counting clock because, like in a real clock, the operation of the mechanism was based on the use of sprockets and gears. Practical use This invention found its way into the hands of Schickard's friend, philosopher and astronomer Johannes Kepler.
This was followed by machines by Blaise Pascal (Pascalina, 1642) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.
Around 1820, Charles Xavier Thomas created the first successful, mass-produced mechanical calculator, the Thomas Arithmometer, which could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was mainly based on the work of Leibniz. Mechanical calculators that count decimal numbers, were used until the 1970s.
1930s - 1960s: desktop calculators.
By 1900, early mechanical calculators, cash registers, and adding machines were redesigned using electric motors to represent the position of a variable as the position of a gear.
Beginning in the 1930s, companies such as Friden, Marchant, and Monro began producing desktop mechanical calculators that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide.
The word "computer" (literally - "calculator") was the name of the position - these were people who used calculators to perform mathematical calculations. During the Manhattan Project, future Nobel laureate Richard Feynman managed a team of "calculators," many of whom were female mathematicians, processing differential equations that were solved for military purposes.
In 1948, Curta appeared, a small mechanical calculator that could be held in one hand.
In the 1950s and 1960s, several brands of similar devices appeared on the Western market.
The first fully electronic desktop calculator was the British ANITA Mk. VII, which used a gas-discharge digital display and 177 miniature thyratrons. In June 1963, Friden introduced the EC-130 with four functions.
It was entirely transistorized, had 13-digit resolution on a 5-inch cathode ray tube, and was marketed by the company at $2,200 for the calculator market. Square root and inverse functions have been added to the EC 132 model. In 1965, Wang Laboratories produced the LOCI-2, a 10-digit transistorized desktop calculator that used a gas-discharge digital readout display and could calculate logarithms.
In the Soviet Union at that time, the most famous and widespread calculator was the Felix mechanical adding machine, produced from 1929 to 1978 at factories in Kursk (Schetmash plant), Penza and Moscow.

The exact time of the invention of computers is very difficult to determine. Their predecessors are mechanical computing machines, for example, abacus, were invented by man long before our era. However, the term “computer” itself is much younger and appeared only in the 20th century.

Along with the IBM 601 punch card machines (1935), the first inventions of the German scientist Konrad Zuse played an important role in the history of the development of computer technology. Today, many people believe that there are several first computers that were invented around the same time.

1936: Konrad Zuse and Z1

In 1936, Konrad Zuse began developing the first programmable calculator, which was completed in 1938. Z1 was the first computer with binary code and worked with punched tape. But unfortunately, the mechanical parts of the calculator were very unreliable. A replica of the Z1 is in the Museum of Technology in Berlin.

1941: Konrad Zuse and Z3

The Z3 is the successor to the Z1 and the first freely programmable computer that could be used in a variety of fields, not just computing. Many historians believe that the Z3 is the world's first functioning general purpose computer.

1946: First generation data processing systems

ENIAC

In 1946, researchers Eckert and Mauchly invented the first fully electronic computer, ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was used by the US Army to calculate ballistic tables. ENIAC had basic math skills and could calculate square roots.

1956-1980: data processing systems 2-5 generations

During these years, higher level programming languages ​​were developed, as well as operating principles virtual memory, the first compatible computers, databases and multiprocessor systems appeared. The world's first freely programmable desktop computer was created by Olivetti. In 1965, the Programma 101 electronic machine became available for purchase at a cost of $3,200.

1970-1974: Computer revolution

Microprocessors became cheaper, and during this period of time quite a lot of computer equipment was released onto the market. The leading role here was played, first of all, by Intel and Fairchild. During these years, Intel created the first microcomputer: on November 15, 1971, a 4-bit Intel processor 4004. In 1973, the Xerox Alto was released - the first computer with a graphical user interface (monitor), a mouse and a built-in Ethernet card.

1976-1979: microcomputers

Microcomputers became popular, new operating systems appeared, as well as floppy drives. Microsoft has established itself in the market. The first ones appeared computer games and standard program names. In 1978, the first 32-bit computer from DEC entered the market.

IBM developed the IBM 5100 - the first "portable" weighing 25 kilograms. It had 16 kilobytes random access memory, 16x64 display and cost over $9,000. It was precisely such a high price that did not allow the computer to establish itself in the market.

1980-1984: first "real" PC

In the 80s came the time of “home computers” such as the Commodore VC20, Atari XL or Amiga computers. IBM had a major influence on future generations of PCs with the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981. IBM's designated hardware class is still valid today: x86 processors are based on subsequent developments of the original IBM design.

In the late 1970s there were many technical devices and manufacturers, but IBM became the dominant supplier of computer equipment. In 1980, the company released the first “real” computer - it set the direction for the development of computer technology to the present day. In 1982, IBM also introduced Word, NetWare, and other applications we are still familiar with today.

The first Apple Macintosh appeared in 1983, focusing on user convenience. In 1984, serial production of PCs began in the USSR. The first domestic computer to go into production was called “AGAT”.

1985/1986: further development of computer technology

In 1985 the 520ST was released. It was an extremely powerful Atari computer for its time. During these same years, the first minicomputer MicroVAX II was released. In 1986, IBM introduced a new operating system (OS/2) to the market.

1990: Windows is born

On May 22, 1990, Windows 3.0 appeared, which was a big breakthrough for Microsoft in those years. About three million copies were sold in the first six months alone operating system. began to be seen as a global way of communication.

1991-1995: Windows and Linux

As a result of progress, initially very expensive computers have become more affordable. Word, Excel and PowerPoint have finally been combined into the Office suite. In 1991, Finnish developer Linus Torvalds began working on Linux.

In many companies, Ethernet has become the data transmission standard. Thanks to the ability to connect computers to each other, the client-server model, which made it possible to work on the network, became increasingly popular.

1996-2000: The Internet becomes increasingly important

During these years, computer scientist Tim Berners Lee developed the language HTML markup, HTTP Transfer Protocol and URL - Uniform Resource Locator to give each site a name and transfer content from the web server to the browser. Since 1995, many web editors have been available, allowing many people to create their own websites.

21st century: further development

In 2003, Apple released the PowerMac G5. It was the first computer with a 64-bit processor. In 2005, Intel created the first dual-core processors.

In subsequent years, the main course of development was aimed at the development of multi-core processors, calculations on graphics chips, and also tablet computers. Since 2005, environmental aspects began to be taken into account in the further development of computer equipment.

Latest technology: quantum computer

Today scientists are working on quantum computers. These machines are based on qubits. We described exactly how quantum computers work in our magazine and in.

Today, the widespread use of calculators greatly facilitates human work in a variety of areas. However, it is almost impossible to imagine life without such assistants - after all, counting devices accompanied people everywhere in a variety of historical periods, although the mechanism of their work was arranged differently.

Already three thousand years ago, the first abacus appeared in Ancient Babylon - an ancient analogue of an abacus, in which round pebbles moved along special guides in the form of recesses, and each of the guides represented a display of a number of units, tens, hundreds. Abacus was also known in Ancient India, and in the 10th century AD it also appeared in Western Europe. However, here, instead of pebbles, it was customary to use special tokens on which numbers were applied.

In Rus', the first analogue of the abacus was the abacus - they were first built at the end of the 15th century and since then their design has remained virtually unchanged, and to this day they are still used in various areas of trade.

The abacus and abacus are relatively simple devices for performing mathematical operations. And yet, since ancient times, people have sought to simplify and speed up calculations as much as possible, and therefore mathematicians invented more and more new algorithms, as well as original devices.

For example, a mechanism found on an ancient shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera dates back to approximately 100-150 BC. BC, however, this device is already amazing with its technical capabilities. Bronze gears on a wooden case, framed by a beautiful dial with arrows, represent the ancient achievement of scientists who, using the Antikyrean mechanism and similar devices, calculated the movement of celestial bodies - after all, this device performed various mathematical operations, in particular, addition, subtraction, division.

The next technical achievement in the field of mechanization of calculations dates back to 1643 and is associated with the name of the scientist Blaise Pascal. The innovation was the adding arithmetic machine, which seemed like a perfect achievement, but thirty years later Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz introduced an even more complex invention - the first mechanized calculator. It is noteworthy that it was during these years (the beginning of modern times) that the struggle between the “Abbacists” and the “algorithmists” subsided somewhat, and the calculator represented the expected compromise between the two conflicting parties.

The most active surge in the development of calculators occurs in the 19th-20th centuries. In the 1890s. In Russia, an adding machine of its own production is actively used; already in the 50s of the next century, mass production of models with an electric drive was being established - “Bistritsa”, “VMM”, etc. Pocket calculators have been available to our fellow citizens since 1974, and the first such model was Elektronika B3-04. At the same time, the first programmable calculators appeared in the USSR, the peak of development of which was the “Electronics MK-85” model, working in the Basic programming language.

Abroad, the development of calculating machines is no less intense. The first mass-produced calculator, ANITA MK VIII, was produced in England in 1961 and is a device powered by gas-discharge lamps. This device was quite bulky by modern standards; it was equipped with a keyboard for entering numbers, as well as an additional 10-key console for setting the multiplier. In 1965, Wang calculators first learned to count logarithms, and four years later the first desktop programmable calculator appeared in the United States. And in the 1970s, the world of calculators became more advanced and diverse - new desktop and pocket machines appeared, as well as professional engineering calculators, allowing for complex calculations.

Today, improved models of calculators are high-tech developments, the creation of which used the enormous experience of engineering enterprises around the world. And, despite the absolute priority of computers, calculators and other calculating devices still accompany people in various fields of activity!

The history of the development of such a computing mechanism as a calculator begins in the 17th century, and the first prototypes of this device existed in the 6th century BC. The word “calculator” itself comes from the Latin “calculo”, which means “I count”, “I count”. But a more detailed study of the etymology of this concept shows that we should initially talk about the word “calculus”, which is translated as “pebble”. After all, initially it was pebbles that were used as an attribute for counting.

The calculator is one of the simplest and most frequently used mechanisms in everyday life, but this invention has a long history and valuable experience for the development of science.

Antikythera Mechanism

The first prototype of the calculator is considered to be the Antikythera mechanism, which was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century near the island of Antikythera on a sunken ship that belonged to Italy. Scientists believe that the mechanism can be dated back to the second century BC.

The device was intended to calculate the movement of planets and satellites. The Antikythera mechanism could also add, subtract and divide.

Abacus

While trade relations between Asia and Europe began to improve, the need for various accounting operations became greater and greater. That is why in the 6th century the first prototype of a calculating machine was invented - Abacus.

An abacus is a small wooden board on which special grooves were made. These small recesses most often contained pebbles or tokens representing numbers.

The mechanism worked on the principle of Babylonian counting, which was based on the sexagesimal system. Any digit of a number consisted of 60 units and, based on where the number was located, each groove corresponded to the number of units, tens, etc. Due to the fact that it was quite inconvenient to hold 60 pebbles in each recess, the recesses were divided into 2 parts: in one - pebbles denoting tens (no more than 5), in the second - pebbles denoting units (no more than 9) . At the same time, in the first compartment the pebbles corresponded to units, in the second compartment to tens, etc. If in one of the grooves the number required for the operation exceeded 59, then one of the stones was moved to the adjacent row.

The abacus was popular until the XVIII century and had many modifications.

Leonardo da Vinci's calculating machine

In the diaries of Leonardo da Vinci one could see drawings of the first calculating machine, which were called the “Madrid Codex”.

The device consisted of several rods with wheels of different sizes. Each wheel at its base had teeth, thanks to which the mechanism could work. Ten rotations of the first axis resulted in one rotation of the second, and ten rotations of the second axis resulted in one full rotation of the third.

Most likely, during his lifetime Leonardo was never able to transfer his ideas into the material world, so it is generally accepted that in the second half of the 19th century the first model of a calculating machine, created by Dr. Roberto Guatelli, appeared.

Napier Sticks

Scottish explorer John Napier, in one of his books published in 1617, outlined the principle of multiplication using wooden sticks. Soon a similar method began to be called Napier's sticks. This mechanism was based on the lattice multiplication method, which was popular at that time.

"Napere's Sticks" were a set of wooden sticks, most of which were marked with the multiplication table, as well as one stick with numbers from one to nine marked on it.

In order to carry out the multiplication operation, it was necessary to lay out sticks that would correspond to the value of the digit of the multiplicand, and the top row of each tablet had to form the multiplicand. In each line, the numbers were summed up, and then the result after the operation was added up.

Schickard's calculating clock

It was more than 150 years after Leonardo da Vinci invented his calculating machine when German professor Wilhelm Schickard wrote about his invention in one of his letters to Johannes Kepler in 1623. According to Schickard, the device could perform addition and subtraction operations, as well as multiplication and division.

This invention went down in history as one of the prototypes of the calculator, and the name " mechanical watches"It received because of the principle of operation of the mechanism, which was based on the use of sprockets and gears.

Schickard's calculating clock was the first mechanical device that could perform 4 arithmetic operations.

Two copies of the device burned down in a fire, and the drawings of their creator were found only in 1935.

Blaise Pascal's calculating machine

In 1642, Blaise Pascal began developing a new calculating machine at the age of 19. Pascal's father, while collecting taxes, was forced to deal with constant calculations, so his son decided to create an apparatus that could facilitate such work.

Blaise Pascal's Calculating Machine is a small box containing many interconnected gears. The numbers needed to perform any of the four arithmetic operations were entered using wheel turns that corresponded to the decimal place of the number.

Over the course of 10 years, Pascal was able to construct about 50 copies of the machines, 10 of which he sold.

Kalmar's adding machine

In the first half of the 19th century, Thomas de Kalmar created the first commercial device that could perform four arithmetic operations. The adding machine was created based on the mechanism of Kalmar's predecessor, Wilhelm Leibniz. Having managed to improve an already existing apparatus, Kalmar called his invention an “arithmometer.”

The Squid Adding Machine is a small iron or wooden mechanism that contains an automated counter that can be used to perform four arithmetic operations. It was a device that was superior to a number of already existing models, since it could work with thirty-digit numbers.

Adding machines of the 19th-20th century

After humanity realized that Computer Engineering significantly simplifies working with numbers; in the 19th and 20th centuries, many inventions related to counting mechanisms appeared. The most popular device during this period was the adding machine.

Squid Adding Machine: Invented in 1820, the first commercial machine to perform 4 arithmetic operations.

Chernyshev's adding machine: the first adding machine to appear in Russia, invented in the 50s of the 19th century.

The Odhner adding machine is one of the most popular adding machines of the twentieth century, appeared in 1877.

Mercedes-Euklid VI adding machine: the first adding machine capable of performing four arithmetic operations without human assistance, invented in 1919.

Calculators in the 21st century

Nowadays, calculators play a significant role in all spheres of life: from professional to household. These computing instruments replaced the abacus and abacus, which were popular in their time, for humanity.

Based on the target audience and characteristics, calculators are divided into simple, engineering, accounting and financial. There are also programmable calculators that can be placed in a separate class. They can work with complex programs pre-built into the mechanism itself. To work with graphs, you can use a graphing calculator.

Also, classifying calculators by design, there are compact and desktop types.

The history of counting technology is the process of acquiring experience and knowledge by humanity, as a result of which counting mechanisms were able to harmoniously fit into human life.

Development of a new industry at the peak of the television boom

We are accustomed to using electronic calculators for both personal and business purposes. In 1964, as Japan prepared for the Tokyo Olympics, Sharp again introduced a fundamentally new product - the world's first all-transistor diode electronic calculator.

Proposal from young engineers

A few years earlier, in 1960, sales of televisions and other products had skyrocketed to levels 18 times higher than in 1950—an astonishing achievement over a ten-year period. Some young engineers who have been with the company for about four or five years have analyzed Hi-tech, intensively engaged in the research of computer and semiconductor technologies. Management accepted their proposals and a new research laboratory was established.

Computers are like an abacus

For a number of reasons, the company abandoned its original goals of developing large computers and instead decided to develop computers that could be used by anyone, anytime, anywhere, as simple as an abacus.

Execution after familiarization with the origins

As in the situation with radio engineering, the development of computers seemed to the development team an almost insurmountable task. But already in 1964, Sharp introduced the world's first all-transistor-diode electronic desktop calculator, the CS-10A. The cost of the calculator was 535,000 yen.

A new sensation unleashes a “war of electronic calculators”

The first all-transistor diode electronic calculator was a high-quality product that could not be confused with an abacus. The speed of calculations and silent operation were sensational. Manufacturers flocked to this industry, where there were soon 33 manufacturing companies offering 210 various models such devices. This fierce competition has led to what is known as the "electronic calculator war."

Service as the starting point of reorganization

The successful development of an all-transistor diode electronic calculator marked the beginning of Sharp's developments in the field of semiconductors, LCD screens, information systems and communication systems. As a result, the company has become a comprehensive enterprise for the production of electronic equipment. Fierce competition stimulated the development of more inexpensive, compact, and lightweight electronic calculators and ensured intensive development of electronic technology.

In 1965, after the excitement of the Olympic Games, the Japanese economy experienced crisis and recession. The market for the "three sacred treasures" and other products that stimulate the development of the household electrical and electronic devices, became saturated. For the subsequent development of sales volume and the market for electronic devices, the company quickly adopted a strategy to overcome this situation.

"Strategy 70" to strengthen the sales network

Sharp's new "Strategy 70" was aimed at strengthening and expanding its existing sales network. Its goal was to strengthen the network by 1970 through sales in subsidiaries (their sales volume should have been up to 70% of total sales). Individual operations were also carried out, including the opening of new stores (Operation A) and increased transactions with large retailers (Operation B), thereby achieving the goal of Strategy 70 by 1971.

Comprehensive growth in color television needs

1966 saw an unexpectedly rapid economic recovery, dispelling the gloom in Japanese business circles. Automotive manufacturing, air conditioning, and color televisions became the "three pillars of the economy," and Sharp's revenues increased with continued growth in color television sales and the creation of the industry's first turntable microwave ovens.

The world's first electronic calculator based on integrated circuits

Research into miniaturizing calculators by replacing transistors with integrated circuits led to the world's first electronic calculator using integrated circuits (CS-31A). The weight, number of parts and cost of the new product were almost half of the characteristics of the first Sharp calculator introduced to the market.