Lecture 3: the Mechanical Calculating Machines of the 17Th Century, Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine
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"Computers" Abacus—The First Calculator
Component 4: Introduction to Information and Computer Science Unit 1: Basic Computing Concepts, Including History Lecture 4 BMI540/640 Week 1 This material was developed by Oregon Health & Science University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number IU24OC000015. The First "Computers" • The word "computer" was first recorded in 1613 • Referred to a person who performed calculations • Evidence of counting is traced to at least 35,000 BC Ishango Bone Tally Stick: Science Museum of Brussels Component 4/Unit 1-4 Health IT Workforce Curriculum 2 Version 2.0/Spring 2011 Abacus—The First Calculator • Invented by Babylonians in 2400 BC — many subsequent versions • Used for counting before there were written numbers • Still used today The Chinese Lee Abacus http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/ Component 4/Unit 1-4 Health IT Workforce Curriculum 3 Version 2.0/Spring 2011 1 Slide Rules John Napier William Oughtred • By the Middle Ages, number systems were developed • John Napier discovered/developed logarithms at the turn of the 17 th century • William Oughtred used logarithms to invent the slide rude in 1621 in England • Used for multiplication, division, logarithms, roots, trigonometric functions • Used until early 70s when electronic calculators became available Component 4/Unit 1-4 Health IT Workforce Curriculum 4 Version 2.0/Spring 2011 Mechanical Computers • Use mechanical parts to automate calculations • Limited operations • First one was the ancient Antikythera computer from 150 BC Used gears to calculate position of sun and moon Fragment of Antikythera mechanism Component 4/Unit 1-4 Health IT Workforce Curriculum 5 Version 2.0/Spring 2011 Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519, Italy Leonardo da Vinci • Two notebooks discovered in 1967 showed drawings for a mechanical calculator • A replica was built soon after Leonardo da Vinci's notes and the replica The Controversial Replica of Leonardo da Vinci's Adding Machine . -
The Evolution of Tower Clock Movements and Their Design Over the Past 1000 Years
The Evolution Of Tower Clock Movements And Their Design Over The Past 1000 Years Mark Frank Copyright 2013 The Evolution Of Tower Clock Movements And Their Design Over The Past 1000 Years TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction and General Overview Pre-History ............................................................................................... 1. 10th through 11th Centuries ........................................................................ 2. 12th through 15th Centuries ........................................................................ 4. 16th through 17th Centuries ........................................................................ 5. The catastrophic accident of Big Ben ........................................................ 6. 18th through 19th Centuries ........................................................................ 7. 20th Century .............................................................................................. 9. Tower Clock Frame Styles ................................................................................... 11. Doorframe and Field Gate ......................................................................... 11. Birdcage, End-To-End .............................................................................. 12. Birdcage, Side-By-Side ............................................................................. 12. Strap, Posted ............................................................................................ 13. Chair Frame ............................................................................................. -
Mechanical Parts of Clocks Or Watches in General
G04B CPC COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION G PHYSICS (NOTES omitted) INSTRUMENTS G04 HOROLOGY G04B MECHANICALLY-DRIVEN CLOCKS OR WATCHES; MECHANICAL PARTS OF CLOCKS OR WATCHES IN GENERAL; TIME PIECES USING THE POSITION OF THE SUN, MOON OR STARS (spring- or weight-driven mechanisms in general F03G; electromechanical clocks or watches G04C; electromechanical clocks with attached or built- in means operating any device at pre-selected times or after predetermined time intervals G04C 23/00; clocks or watches with stop devices G04F 7/08) NOTE This subclass covers mechanically-driven clocks or clockwork calendars, and the mechanical part of such clocks or calendars. WARNING In this subclass non-limiting references (in the sense of paragraph 39 of the Guide to the IPC) may still be displayed in the scheme. Driving mechanisms 1/145 . {Composition and manufacture of the springs (compositions and manufacture of 1/00 Driving mechanisms {(driving mechanisms for components, wheels, spindles, pivots, or the Turkish time G04B 19/22; driving mechanisms like G04B 13/026; compositions of component in the hands G04B 45/043; driving mechanisms escapements G04B 15/14; composition and for phonographic apparatus G11B 19/00; springs, manufacture or hairsprings G04B 17/066; driving weight engines F03G; driving mechanisms compensation for the effects of variations of for cinematography G03B 1/00; driving mechnisms; temperature of springs using alloys, especially driving mechanisms for time fuses for missiles F42C; for hairsprings G04B 17/227; materials for driving mechnisms for toys A63H 29/00)} bearings of clockworks G04B 31/00; iron and 1/02 . with driving weight steel alloys C22C; heat treatment and chemical 1/04 . -
History of Computing Prehistory – the World Before 1946
Social and Professional Issues in IT Prehistory - the world before 1946 History of Computing Prehistory – the world before 1946 The word “Computing” Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a computer was a person who computes. Since the advent of the electronic computer, it has come to also mean the operation and usage of these machines, the electrical processes carried out within the computer hardware itself, and the theoretical concepts governing them. Prehistory: Computing related events 750 BC - 1799 A.D. 750 B.C. The abacus was first used by the Babylonians as an aid to simple arithmetic at sometime around this date. 1492 Leonardo da Vinci produced drawings of a device consisting of interlocking cog wheels which could be interpreted as a mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction. A working model inspired by this plan was built in 1968 but it remains controversial whether Leonardo really had a calculator in mind 1588 Logarithms are discovered by Joost Buerghi 1614 Scotsman John Napier invents an ingenious system of moveable rods (referred to as Napier's Rods or Napier's bones). These were based on logarithms and allowed the operator to multiply, divide and calculate square and cube roots by moving the rods around and placing them in specially constructed boards. 1622 William Oughtred developed slide rules based on John Napier's logarithms 1623 Wilhelm Schickard of Tübingen, Württemberg (now in Germany), built the first discrete automatic calculator, and thus essentially started the computer era. His device was called the "Calculating Clock". This mechanical machine was capable of adding and subtracting up to 6 digit numbers, and warned of an overflow by ringing a bell. -
Blaise Pascal's Mechanical Calculator
machines Article Blaise Pascal’s Mechanical Calculator: Geometric Modelling and Virtual Reconstruction José Ignacio Rojas-Sola 1,* , Gloria del Río-Cidoncha 2 , Arturo Fernández-de la Puente Sarriá 3 and Verónica Galiano-Delgado 4 1 Department of Engineering Graphics, Design and Projects, University of Jaén, 23071 Jaén, Spain 2 Department of Engineering Graphics, University of Seville, 41092 Seville, Spain; [email protected] 3 Department of Design Engineering, University of Seville, 41011 Seville, Spain; [email protected] 4 University of Seville, 41092 Seville, Spain; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +34-9-5321-2452 Abstract: This article shows the three-dimensional (3D) modelling and virtual reconstruction of the first mechanical calculating machine used for accounting purposes designed by Blaise Pascal in 1642. To obtain the 3D CAD (computer-aided design) model and the geometric documentation of said invention, CATIA V5 R20 software has been used. The starting materials for this research, mainly the plans of this arithmetic machine, are collected in the volumes Oeuvres de Blaise Pascal published in 1779. Sketches of said machine are found therein that lack scale, are not dimensioned and certain details are absent; that is, they were not drawn with precision in terms of their measurements and proportions, but they do provide qualitative information on the shape and mechanism of the machine. Thanks to the three-dimensional modelling carried out; it has been possible to explain in detail both its operation and the final assembly of the invention, made from the assemblies of its different Citation: Rojas-Sola, J.I.; del subsets. In this way, the reader of the manuscript is brought closer to the perfect understanding of Río-Cidoncha, G.; Fernández-de la the workings of a machine that constituted a major milestone in the technological development of Puente Sarriá, A.; Galiano-Delgado, V. -
United States Patent (19) (11) 4,228,533 Siefert (45) Oct
United States Patent (19) (11) 4,228,533 Siefert (45) Oct. 14, 1980 54 AUTONOMOUSPENDULUMMECHANISM adapted to be attached as a unit to a clockwork, com FOR CLOCKWORKS prises a supporting plate adapted to be attached to a clockwork casing in overlying spaced relationship to (75) Inventor: Roland Siefert, Bad Durrheim, Fed. the front face of the casing. The supporting plate is Rep. of Germany fastened to the casing by a fastening device which is (73) Assignee: Kienzle Uhrenfabriken GmbH, concentric with the spindles for the clock hands and Schwenningen, Fed. Rep. of through which said spindles may project to the exterior Germany of the plate. A pivot bearing is provided on the support (21) Appl. No.: 23,365 ing plate vertically above the spindles adjacent the upper edge of the casing, and the lower edge of the 22 Filed: Mar. 23, 1979 supporting plate carries a circuit board having an elec (30) Foreign Application Priority Data trically energizable coil thereon located immediately Fed. Rep. of Germany ... 78.09694U) below the clockwork casing comprising a portion of an Apr. 1, 1978 (DE) electrical drive mechanism. A pendulum arm extends 51) Int. C. ...................... G04B 15/00; G04B 17/02; from the pivot bearing for swinging motion across the G04B 37/00 front face of the casing in the region between the sup 52 U.S. C. .................................... 368/134; 368/179; porting plate and casing, and has, at its lower end, a 368/278 permanent magnet which cooperates with the coil to 58 Field of Search ................... 58/129, 131, 132, 29, drive the pendulum. -
Copyrighted Material
◆ INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS ◆ Eli Whitney THE COTTON GIN The first patent of major importance to be issued by the U.S. government after it was formed was Eli Whitney’s patent for the cotton gin (“gin” is short for “engine”), which was issued on March 14, 1794. The patent description is in longhand, for reasons I cannot explain. Upon graduating Yale as an engineer in 1792, Whitney, like many college graduates of today, found himself in debt and in need of a job. He left his home in Massachusetts and took a job as a teacher in South Carolina. That job fell through, and Katherine Greene, the war widow of General Nathanial Greene, invited Whitney to stay at her Georgia cotton plantation in early 1793. He noticed that long‐staple cotton, which was readily separated from its seed, could only be grown along the coast. The inland‐ grown variety of cotton had sticky green seeds that were difficult to cull from the fluffy white cotton bolls,COPYRIGHTED and thus was less profitable to MATERIALgrow and harvest. It took 10 hours of hand labor to sift out a single point of cotton lint from its seeds. Whitney, after observing the manual process being used for separating the sticky seeds from the cotton bolls, built his first machine, which did not work. The bulk cotton was pushed against a wire mesh screen, which held back the seeds while wooden Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs, Second Edition. Howard B. Rockman. © 2020 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. -
Mechanical Calculator (Edited from Wikipedia)
Mechanical Calculator (Edited from Wikipedia) SUMMARY A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, was a mechanical device used to automatically perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator. Surviving notes from Wilhelm Schickard in 1623 report that he designed and had built the earliest of the modern attempts at mechanizing calculation. His machine was composed of two sets of technologies: first an abacus made of Napier's bones, to simplify multiplications and divisions. And for the mechanical part, it had a dialed pedometer to perform additions and subtractions. A study of the surviving notes shows a machine that would have jammed after a few entries on the same dial, and that it could be damaged if a carry had to be propagated over a few digits (like adding 1 to 999). Schickard abandoned his project in 1624 and never mentioned it again until his death eleven years later in 1635. Two decades after Schickard's failed attempt, in 1642, Blaise Pascal decisively solved these particular problems with his invention of the mechanical calculator. Helping his father as tax collector in France, Pascal designed the calculator to help in the large amount of tedious arithmetic required.; it was called Pascal's Calculator or Pascaline. Thomas' arithmometer, the first commercially successful machine, was manufactured two hundred years later in 1851; it was the first mechanical calculator strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. For forty years the arithmometer was the only type of mechanical calculator available for sale. -
Clockwork Prosthetic Limbs
Clockwork Prosthetic Limbs aithful readers of Popular Invention fortable and functional artificial limbs from will, of course, remember our June leather and wood. Mister Gillingham’s F1872 issue in which we featured a work has been described as strong, light, profile of master Dwarfish craftsman, Elrich durable and unlikely to get out of repair. Clocktinker and his most famous invention: The two craftsmen got along like fast the Clockwork Servant. friends and, in less than a month, had de- A gentle and generous soul, Master Clock- vised a prototype which married Master tinker took the perversion of his invention Clocktinker’s brilliant and lightwork clock- by nefarious Mastermind, Count Iglio Ca- work with Mister Gillingham’s beautiful gliostro, as a wound upon his heart. Though leatherwork. They further consulted none none would argue culpability on the part of other than Florence Nightingale, an expert Master Clocktinker for the injury caused on battlefield injuries, to help refine the throughout New Europa by Count Caglios- control system and fitting of their new in- tro’s Clockwork Warriors, he has neverthe- vention. less sworn to make amends. Each Gillingham and Clocktinker Pros- While visiting the Dwarfhold of Black thetic Limb must be custom fitted to the Hold, Master Clocktinker observed anoth- recipient. Legs operate more or less au- er Dwarf feeding coal into a hopper with tomatically and work well with the body’s the aid of a clockwork prosthetic arm. Such natural motion to allow a wearer to stand, devices, a boon to those who have suffered sit, walk, or even run. -
The Story Behind the Science: Pendulum Motion
ehind t b h y e r s c o c Pendulum Motion t t i i e e s s n n The Value of Idealization in Science e e c c h h e e T T Galileo Galilei The pendulum is seemingly a very humble and simple changed cultures and societies through its impact on device. Today it is mostly seen as an oscillating weight on navigation. Accurate time measurement was long seen as old grandfather clocks or as a swinging weight on the end the solution to the problem of longitude determination of a string used in school physics experiments. But which had vexed European maritime nations in their surprisingly, despite its modest appearances, the efforts to sail beyond Europe's shores. Treasure fleets pendulum has played a significant role in the development from Latin America, trading ships from the Far East, and of Western science, culture and society. naval vessels were all getting lost and running out of food and water. Ships were running aground on reefs or into The significance of the pendulum to the development of cliffs instead of finding safe harbors. modern science was in its use for time keeping. The pendulum's initial Galileo-inspired utilization in clockwork Position on the Earth's surface is given by two provided the world's first accurate measure of time. The coordinates: latitude (how many degrees above or below accuracy of mechanical clocks went, in the space of a the equator the place is), and longitude (how many couple of decades in the early 17th century, from plus or degrees east or west of a given north-south meridian the minus half-an-hour per day to one second per day. -
Mechanical Computing
Home For Librarians Help My SpringerReference Go Advanced Search Physics and Astronomy > Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science > Mechanical Computing: The Related Articles Computational Complexity of Physical Devices Unconventional Computing, Introduction to Cite | History | Comment | Print | References | Image Gallery | Hide Links Author This article represents the version submitted by the author. Dr. John H. Reif It is currently undergoing peer review prior to full publication. Dept. Comp. Sci., Duke Univ., Durham, USA and Adj. Fac. of Mechanical Computing: The Computational Complexity of Comp., KAU, Jeddah, SA, Durham, USA Physical Devices Editor Page Content [show] Dr. Robert A. Meyers RAMTECH LIMITED, Larkspur, USA Glossary Session History (max. 10) Mechanical Computing: The - Mechanism: A machine or part of a machine that performs a particular task computation: Computational Complexity of Physical the use of a computer for calculation. Devices - Computable: Capable of being worked out by calculation, especially using a computer. - Simulation: Used to denote both the modeling of a physical system by a computer as well as the modeling of the operation of a computer by a mechanical system; the difference will be clear from the context. Definition of the Subject Mechanical devices for computation appear to be largely displaced by the widespread use of microprocessor‐based computers that are pervading almost all aspects of our lives. Nevertheless, mechanical devices for computation are of interest for at least three reasons: (a) Historical: The use of mechanical devices for computation is of central importance in the historical study of technologies, with a history dating back thousands of years and with surprising applications even in relatively recent times. -
MACHINES to DO ARITHMETIC EARLY CALCULATORS the Term Computer Dates Back to the 1600S
ANChp0wTLV5_052002.qxp 5/20/02 10:53 AM Page 5 0.2 Part of the Picture The History of Computing # Four important concepts have shaped the history of computing: I the mechanization of arithmetic; I the stored program; I the graphical user interface; I the computer network. The following timeline of the history of computing shows some of the important events and devices that have implemented these concepts, especially the first two. Additional information about these and the other two important concepts follow the timeline. MACHINES TO DO ARITHMETIC EARLY CALCULATORS The term computer dates back to the 1600s. However, until the 1950s, the term referred almost exclusively to a human who performed computations. For human beings, the task of performing large amounts of computation is one that is laborious, time consuming, and error prone. Thus, the human desire to mechanize arithmetic is an ancient one. One of the earliest “personal calculators” was the abacus,with movable beads strung on rods to count and to do calculations. Although its exact origin is unknown, 3000 B.C. ABACUS the abacus was used by the Chinese perhaps 3000 to 4000 years ago and is still used today throughout Asia. Early mer- chants used the abacus in trading transactions. The ancient British stone monument Stonehenge,located near Salisbury, England, was built between 1900 and 1600 B.C. and, evidently, was used to predict the changes of the seasons. In the twelfth century, a Persian teacher of mathematics in Baghdad, Muhammad ibn-Musa al-Khowarizm, developed 1900-1600 B.C. STONEHENGE some of the first step-by-step procedures for doing computa- tions.