Survey Calculations

摘要

One of my passions in life is to try and understand how we have developed the wonderful calculating ability we currently possess. Anyone with this hobby will undoubtedly start by looking back to see how the first PCs were developed, then progress back to older "mainframe" computers, and perhaps even to pre-computer mechanical devices. If, like me, you are really bitten with the bug, you will also try and investigate the much earlier forms of calculation, perhaps even going back to study Babylonian and Egyptian methods of arithmetic. I even sat through a full graduate course in reading Egyptian hieroglyphics just so I could better appreciate some of the ancient texts—which says something about how badly I have been bitten.