jueves, 9 de septiembre de 2010

Computer history


This is named a pascaline. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven one-function calculator (it could only add) but couldn't sell many because of their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate (at that time it was not possible to fabricate gears with the required precision).

The abacus was an early aid for mathematical computations. Its only value is that it aids the memory of the human performing the calculation.

Napier's invention led directly to the slide rule, first built in England in 1632 and still in use in the 1960's by the NASA engineers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs which landed men on the moon.

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