HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS
EARLY METHODS OF COUNTING
BODY COUNTING
- Fingers, toes and feet.
- The fingers and toes were used for counting and keeping track of days, while the feet were used to measure areas, such as land.
COLLECTION COUNTING
- A collection of smaller objects were used to correspond with the objects counted.
- For example, a shepherd would keep a count of his sheep by keeping the same number of pebbles.
- A collection of shells, pearls, elephant teeth, sticks, or even coconuts could be used.
- A tally stick is any piece of wood, bone, or object on which notches could be cut.
- Each notch corresponds to an object being counted.
- With tally sticks, only a small piece of wood or bone needed to be carried around for keeping track of the numbers of objects.
KNOTTED STRING
- Knotted strings were used in the same way as tally sticks.
LIMITATION OF EARLY COUNTING AND CALCULATING DEVICES
- They could not be used to count large numbers.
- The results/output could not be stored.
- They consumed a lot of time.
- The operation was extremely difficult.
- They were prone to errors.
- It was difficult to keep and move them around.
MECHANICAL COUNTING / COMPUTING DEVICES
- List 5 features of early counting devices.
PRESENTATION
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