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Eventually, the concept of numbers became concrete and familiar enough for counting to arise, at times with sing-song mnemonics to teach sequences to others. All known human languages, except the Piraha language, have words for at least the numerals "one" and "two", and even some animals like the blackbird can distinguish a surprising number of items.
Technological artifacts of similar complexity appeared in 14th century Europe, with mechanical astronomical clocks. [13] When John Napier discovered logarithms for computational purposes in the early 17th century, [14] there followed a period of considerable progress by inventors and scientists in making calculating tools.
Stephen White's Computer history site (the above article is a modified version of his work, used with permission) Digital Deli , edited by Steve Ditlea, full text of the classic computer book Collection of old analog and digital computers at Old Computer Museum
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The first silicon IC computer was the Apollo Guidance Computer or AGC. [169] Although not the most powerful computer of its time, the extreme constraints on size, mass, and power of the Apollo spacecraft required the AGC to be much smaller and denser than any prior computer, weighing in at only 70 pounds (32 kg).
Computer science is more theoretical (Turing's essay is an example of computer science), whereas software engineering is focused on more practical concerns. However, prior to 1946, software as we now understand it – programs stored in the memory of stored-program digital computers – did not yet exist.
A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952. It was not until the mid-20th century that the word acquired its modern definition; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word computer was in a different sense, in a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard Brathwait: "I haue [] read the truest computer of Times, and the best ...
The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals.