ORIGINS

ORIGINS


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__1) Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) __Pascal's triangle consisted in: each number is the sum of the two directly above it. The triangle demonstrates many mathematical properties in addition to showing binomial coefficients. =====

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He create d the first DIGITAL calculator. It performed addition and subtraction operations, entering each digit manually by turning the appropriate gear. The results were displayed in a window. =====

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Pascal’s discovery developed into a very important thing to the evolution of computers as now it is the base to encourage structures programming. It allows programmers to” tackle complex problems using microcomputers.” =====

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 __2) Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) __Leibniz’s calculator not only added and subtracted but also divided and multiplied. The “complicated and unreliable mechanism” formed products by adding the multiplicand first to itself and then to the subtotal, as many times as indicated by the value of the multiplier. =====

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The Jacquard loom was the first machine to use punch cards to control a sequence of operations. Although it did no computation based on them, it is considered an important step in the history of computing hardware. The ability to change the pattern of the loom's weave by simply changing cards was an important fact to the development of computer programming.=====

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Babbage, influenced by Jacquard, designed the ANALITICAL ENGINE. He incorporated a mechanical memory to store intermediate calculated results so they would not have to be copied onto paper and then reentered again. His design included the four basic components found in every modern computer; these components perform the basic functions of input, output, processing, and storage.=====

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She is regarded as the first computer programmer. She was a mathematical prodigy and became interested in Babbage’s idea and in 1842 she translated a description of Babbage’s machine from French into English. She added some of her ideas about programming to the translation and corrected Babbage’s errors. Ada Lovelace is credited now for the development of the programming loop, in which a sequence of operations is repeated within a program. =====

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He introduced the first commercially successful mechanical adding machine. 1000000 Burroughs Adding and Listing Machines were sold by 1926, and even Henry Ford (the creator of the first mass-production industry) produced a car, the Burroughs Special, with a special rack designed to vary the popular machine. His machine consisted in: each column of keys corresponds to a decimal digit position; numbers were entered and then accumulated into the total by pulling down the handle. =====

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Hollerith built machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them to tabulate the 1890 census in only one year. The 1880 census had taken eight years. Hollerith then started his own business in 1896, founding the Tabulating Machine Company. Most of the major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. To make his system work, he invented the first automatic card-feed mechanism and the first key punch which allowed a skilled operator to punch 200–300 cards per hour. He also invented a tabulator. The 1890 Tabulator was hardwired to operate only on 1890 Census cards. A wiring panel in his 1906 Type I Tabulator allowed it to do different jobs without having to be rebuilt (the first step towards programming).These inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. In 1911, four corporations, including Hollerith's firm, merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR).Under the presidency of Thomas J. Watson, it was renamed International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in 1924. ===== 

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  __8) Thomas J. Watson (1874-1956)__ =====

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 <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Thomas John Watson was the American president of International Business Machines (IBM), who oversaw that company's growth into an international force from the 1920s to the 1950s. Watson developed IBM's effective management style and turned it into one of the most effective selling organizations yet seen, based largely around punched card tabulating machines. A leading self-made industrialist, he was one of the richest men of his time and was called the world's greatest salesman when he died in 1956. =====

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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic','sans-serif'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">John von Neumann was a mathematician who made major contributions to a vast range of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, continuous geometry, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis, hydrodynamics (of explosions), and statistics, as well as many other mathematical fields. He is generally regarded as one of the foremost mathematicians of the 20th century. Along with Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann worked out key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb. Von Neumann abandoned the decimal system. He reasoned that the switches out of which computers were built had two states: on and off (or conducting and nonconducting for the vacuum tubes he employed). Using such switches to represent decimal digits (numbers from 0 to9) is somewhat inefficient and complicated. He came up with the BINARY SYSTEM of notation in which one binary digit is called a BIT. The 2 possible vales of a bit are represented by the two possible states of the switch. Vin Neumann also created an intellectual environment in which the application of computers was the focus of broad and deep investigation. This computer could turn instantly form one program to another; this meant that this computer had more than one use. Although its major role was to design U.S nuclear weapons, it ran hundreds of other pioneering programs form the simulation of genetic processes to the first electronic game. After this, things began to move more quickly and in 1952 IBM unveiled its first computer. =====