The History of Computer Science
Episode 0: The Abacus
The year is 10,000 b.C. Somewhere in the Middle East, a revolution is happening. In some way, a big-headed primate discovers that if he plants a seed in the ground, something rather interesting happens. In a couple of days this seed becomes a sprout. If the big-headed guy takes the necessary care, this sprout grows and becomes a plant that produces even more seeds and food for the big-headed guy. Voilà! This big-headed being, known formally as Homo Sapiens just hacked nature.
In a matter of a few centuries, humans became experts in farming. For the first time in history, there was no longer a need for wasting energy in order to chase food. Goodbye to the times that humans would be wandering around, from place to place, trying to find food, either by hunting or collecting what they could find.
That life was harsh. Imagine yourself walking around all day in a jungle and being able to count in your fingers the amount of food you gathered to share between you and your family.
With the domestication of plants, everything changed. Suddenly, everything your family needed to feed themselves was next to their homes. Luxury at its primal form. The amount of food was uncountable for our fellow human. Not even with his toes and fingers he could count the size of their crops, or the amount of extra food in his community.
Suddenly the big-headed guy had another brilliant idea: “Well, I don’t have enough fingers to count the things I own, but what if I draw some fingers on the ground to help me?”
Thus the abacus was born.
It was invented by the need of counting things! According to Wikipedia:
The use of the word abacus dates before 1387 AD, when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin to describe a sand board abacus. The Latin word came from Greek ἄβαξ (abax) which means something without base, and improperly, any piece of rectangular board or plank. Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means “a square tablet strewn with dust”, or “drawing-board covered with dust
The abacus that probably comes to your head, assembled as a portable and robust instrument is the iPhone X of abacus! Way before the state of the art of the abacus was reached, the first proof of concept was made out of clay that worked as some kind of canvas and sand to make the drawings.
But what does the abacus has to do with computation? Everything!
The abacus is no less than the first volatile memory invented in history. With it is possible to store information for whatever long you need! Besides, an abacus can also be used to do addition and subtraction operations, just by moving little balls here and there.
This invention marks the beginning of the epic journey of computer science! In the second episode of this series we’ll take a leap towards the XV a.C, where somewhere in Europe some man named Bleise Pascal was about to take the next step towards progress of computer science!
