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What is a Computer? Perhaps it might have been possible for the modern electronic computer to evolve from any number of different origins. But as it stands, the computer was born of a very specific human desire: namely, the desire to mechanize arithmetic—that is, to get a machine to do arithmetic so humans would not have to. It may surprise you to learn that the English word computer has been in use since the 1600s. However, if you looked up the word computer in any dictionary published in the three hundred years prior to World War II, you would find that the word referred to a human being, a person who did arithmetic computations. Thus, "computer" was an occupation, in the same sense as "butcher," "baker," and "candlestick maker." Did the word computer
carry the same allure of today's "high tech" occupations? Hardly.
This kind of work was sheer drudgery: sitting hour after hour, performing
calculations by hand and recording them in books in the form of calculation
tables. In France after the French Revolution, the decision was made
to convert to a decimal monetary system, and a whole host of computations
were required. Who got stuck with this horrible work? For starters, many
out-of-work barbers who had lost their pre-War aristocratic clientele
(some, to the |
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If you encounter technical errors, contact computing@calvin.edu.
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