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In the Race
Now, here, you see, it takes all the blogging I can do to keep in the same place. If I want to get somewhere else, I must blog twice as fast as that! You see, I'm in the Red Queen's Race...
Could You Do Without Computers?
By Janet Evans
Monday, Jun 23 2008, 07:05 AM
A Basic Abacus
In Asia, the Chinese were becoming very involved in commerce with the Japanese, Indians, and Koreans. Businessmen needed a way to tally accounts and bills. Somehow, out of this need, the abacus was born. The abacus is the first true precursor to the adding machines and computers which would follow. It worked somewhat like this:The value assigned to each pebble (or bead, shell, or stick) is determined not by its shape but by its position: one pebble on a particular line or one bead on a particular wire has the value of 1; two together have the value of 2. A pebble on the next line, however, might have the value of 10, and a pebble on the third line would have the value of 100. Therefore, three properly placed pebbles--two with values of 1 and one with the value of 10--could signify 12, and the addition of a fourth pebble with the value of 100 could signify 112, using a place-value notational system with multiples of 10. Thus, the abacus works on the principle of place-value notation: the location of the bead determines its value. In this way, relatively few beads are required to depict large numbers. The beads are counted, or given numerical values, by shifting them in one direction. The values are erased (freeing the counters for reuse) by shifting the beads in the other direction. An abacus is really a memory aid for the user making mental calculations, as opposed to the true mechanical calculating machines which were still to come.
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In 1985, as a stay at home mom, I felt I was very fortunate. My daughter went to school at Country Dale Elementary School, in Franklin. Apple computers were the rage in the Franklin schools. I had never owned or used a computer before, but my daughter, who was in the Gifted and Talented Program (which, if I remember correctly had just been instituted in the school system) was very interested in computers. With me being a volunteer at school, I was also interested, and I wanted a computer at home for both of us to use.
We saved, and we purchased an computer. I also bought the same programs that my daughter was using at school. The cool thing was, the printer was dot matrix. Wow! The best thing, before we started using the internet for everything? Having an encyclopedia program. It was the greatest! Having that computer not only helped my children, but helped me with future employment. Could we have lived without it? Of course. But right now, it’s awfully hard to think of times without computers.
I do think back to my school days without them. We had manual typewriters and we did term papers that didn’t always look very nice, but they were a least typed. Teachers were making copies on actual mimeograph machines that used blue ink. I can still smell that ink, with the papers that were still damp when we got them. Calculators, if you were lucky enough to have one, were huge and clumsy.
There are many things in life that I wouldn’t mind giving up and just going back to the old fashioned way. But a computer is not one of them. Back in 1985 the computer was an amazing adventure for me, even though it was in a basic form. But now, a computer has pretty much opened up the world....Just think where a computer can take you.
Read about the history of computers: Computers From Past to Present ç here
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