Ebook: Computing Before Computers

Wherever we turn we hear about the "Computer Revolution" and our "Information Age." This is testimony to the public awareness of the invention and rapid development of the computer since the Second World War and the fundamental changes it has driven in the way we conduct business, perform scientific research, and spend our leisure time. With all of this attention to the computer we tend to forget that computing has a rich history that extends back beyond 1945. Since antiquity societies have had a need to process information and make computations, and they have met this need through technology. We offer here a concise survey of computing technology prior to the development of the modern computer. We show the continuity of the history of computing by tracing several distinct older traditions that over the last forty years have converged in today's technology. Our study ends essentially in 1945, at the time when the plans for the first electronic, stored-program computer were being made. However, we do follow the exit of these earlier technologies, none of which survived long after the commercialization of computers in the 1950s.