The Prehistory of Computing, Part II - OranLooney.com
September 27, 2025
Computer Science
History
Math
In part I of this two-part series we covered lookup tables and simple
devices with at most a handful of moving parts. This time we’ll pick up in the
17th centuries, when computing devices started to became far more complex and
the groundwork for later theoretical work began to be laid.
Pascal
We enter the era of mechanical calculators in 1642 when Pascal
invented a machine, charmingly called the pascaline, which could perform
addition and subtract...
Read more at oranlooney.com