- Four Basic Period of Computer History
Pre Mechanical Age
Mechanical Age
Pre-Mechanical Age(3000B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
Petroglyths (signs or simple figures carved in rock)
Cave painting from Lascaux, France(15,000-10,000 B.C.)
Ideographs (symbols to represent ideas and concept)
Mayan Ideograph
Cuneiform – the first true written language and the first real information system. (coo-nay-eh-form)Star – heaven or God
Cuneiform
At around 2000 BC the Phoenicians created symbols that expressed single syllables and consonants (the first true alphabet)
Greek adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added vowels
Romans gave the letters Latin name to create the alphabet we use today.
The First Calculator
Abacus – was man’s first recorded adding machine. Invented in Babylonia and popularized in China
Wilhelm Shickard – 1623 - (Professor at University of Tubingen, Germany) – invented the first mechanical calculator that can work with six digits and can carries digits across columns.
Blaise Pascal (1642) – invented the Pascaline. (made of clock gears and levers) that could solve mathematical problems like addition and subtraction.