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The abacus is possibly the first mechanical accounting device in history. It is about 5,000 years old and actually is also used in many countries. Nowadays is used by children to learn mathematical competences.
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The Pascaline has been the first mechanical calculator in history. Invented by the French thinker, philosopher, and mathematician Blaise Pascal at the age of nineteen in 1642. The machine was able to add and subtract. Pascal developed the invention to make his father’s job easier. The Pascaline is an ancestor of modern calculators and also of current computers.
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The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801. The contraption used punched cards to weave patterns into the fabric, allowing even the most inexperienced users to craft complex designs.
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The analytical machine is a design for a modern general-purpose computer by the British mathematics professor Charles Babbage, which represented an important step in the history of computing. The next computers that were logically comparable to the analytical machine could only be built 100 years later.
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The tabulator machine is one of the first application machines in computing. In 1890, Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) developed a logic-based electric punch card system, applying it to a tabulator machine of his invention. Hollerith's machine was used to tabulate that year's census in the United States. The machine had a card reader, a counter, a classifier and a tab created by it. So, in 1896, Hollerith created the Tabulating Machine Company, with it he intended to market his machine.
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