Everyone had to use a calculator. It has already become an everyday object, not surprising. But what is the history of its development? Who invented the first calculator? How did the medieval device look and function?
Ancient Computing Tools
With the advent of trade and exchange, people began to feel the need for an account. For this purpose, they used fingers and toes, grains, stones. Around 500 B. C. e. the first bills appeared. Abacus looked like a flat board, on which small objects were laid out in grooves. This type of calculus became widespread in Greece and Rome.
The Chinese used 5 instead of 10 as the basis of counting. Suan-pan is a rectangular frame for calculations, on which threads are stretched vertically. The design was conditionally divided into 2 parts - the lower "Earth" and the upper "Sky". The bottom balls were ones and the top ones were tens.
The Slavs followed in the footsteps of their eastern neighbors, only slightly changed the device. A board counting device appeared in the 15th century. The difference from the Chinese suan-pan is that the ropes were locatedhorizontally, and the number system was decimal.
First mechanical device
Wilhelm Schickard, a German mathematician and astronomer, in 1623 was able to realize his dream and became the author of a device based on a clock mechanism. The counting clock could perform simple mathematical operations. But since the device was complex and large, it was not widely used. Johannes Keppler became the first user of the mechanism, although he believed that calculations were easier to perform in the mind. From this moment begins the history of the calculator, and transformations in the design and functions of the device will gradually lead it to its modern form.
French physicist and philosopher Pascal, 20 years later, proposed a device that counts using gears. To perform addition or subtraction, it was necessary to turn the wheel the necessary number of times.
In 1673, the device improved by the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz became the first calculator - later the name was fixed in history. With it, it became possible to perform multiplication and division. However, the cost of the mechanism was high, so it was impossible to make the device available for use.
Serial production
It was known for a long time who invented the calculator - Peter the Great even bought the Leibniz mechanism. Wagner and Levin used his ideas. After the death of the inventor, a similar device was built by Burckhardt, further improvedMüller and Knutzen were involved.
For commercial purposes, the device began to use the Frenchman Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar. The entrepreneur organized serial production in 1820, his machine was almost the same as the first calculator. Who invented it from these two scientists, there were disputes, the Frenchman was even accused of appropriating someone else's achievement, but the design of the calculating machine at Colmar was still different.
In Tsarist Russia, the first adding machine is the result of the work of the scientist Chernyshov. He created the device in the 50s of the XIX century, but the name was patented in 1873 by Frank Baldwin. The principle of operation of a mechanical calculating machine is based on cylinders and gears.
At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, mass production of calculators began in Russia. In the Soviet Union, a device called "Felix" became widespread in the 30s of the last century and was used until the end of the 70s.
Electronic calculators
The Cassio brothers invented the first electronic calculator. In 1957, the era of rapid development in the computer industry began. The Casio 14-A device weighed as much as 140 kg, had an electrical relay and 10 buttons. Numbers were displayed and the result was displayed. By 1965, the weight had dropped to 17 kg.
The domestic electronic calculator is the merit of scientists from the Leningrad University who developed it in 1961. The EKVM-1 model went into commercial production already in 1964. Three years later, the device was improved, it could work with trigonometric functions. The engineering calculator was first inventedHewlett Packard in 1972.
The next stage of development is microcircuits. Who invented calculators of this generation in the USSR? The development involved 27 engineers. They spent about 15 years until the engineering calculator "Electronics V3-18" went on sale in 1975. Square roots, degrees, logarithms and a transistor microprocessor won popular recognition, but the cost of the device was 200 rubles and not everyone could afford it.
The VZ-34 microcalculator became a breakthrough in Soviet technology. At a cost of 85 rubles, he became the first domestic home computer. The software allowed to install not only engineering, but also game programs.
MK-90 became the masterpiece of the last century. The device had no analogues at that time: a graphic display, non-volatile RAM and BASIC programming.
