Inventions

Question 0

Napier Bones

Answer 0

1617
John Napier invented logarithms.
Logarithm values were carved on ivory sticks.

Question 1

abacus

Answer 1

2700 BC
An early aid for mathematical computations.
Aids the memory of the human performing the calculation.

Question 2

Leonardo DaVinci

Answer 2

1452-1519

Drawings of gear-driven calculating machines

Question 3

calculating clock

Answer 3

1623

Wilhelm Schickard invented the first gear-driven calculating machine

Question 4

Pascaline

Answer 4

1642

Blaise Pascl invented a gear-driven one-function calculator (addition) at the young age of 19

Question 5

Jacquard’s Loom

Answer 5

1801
Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a power loom that could base its weave (and hence the design on the fabric) upon a pattern automatically read from punched wooden cards

Question 6

Difference Engine

Analytic Engine

Answer 6

1822
Charles Babbage was proposing a steam driven calculating machine the size of a room to calculate numeric tables in ocean navigation.

Question 7

Ada Byron

Or Countess Lady Lovelace

Answer 7

She detailed sequences of instructions she had prepared for the Analytic Engine. Ada invented the subroutine and was the first to recognize the importance of looping. First computer programmer.

Question 8

Hollerith desk

Answer 8

1890

Herman Hollerith adopted Jacquard’s punched cards for the purpose of computation. Utilizized in the 1890 US Census.

Question 9

Tabulating Machine Company

Answer 9

Hollerith’s company that would eventually become International Business Machines or IBM

Question 10

Z1, Z2, Z3

Answer 10

1936 - 1941

German Konrad Zuse built a sequence of general purpose computers in Nazi Germany

Question 11

Harvard Mark I

Answer 11

1944

Computer built as a partnership between Harvard and IBM. This was the first programmable digital computer

Question 12

Atanasoff-Berry Computer

Answer 12

1941
All-electronic (that is, no gears, cams, belts, shafts, etc.) digital computer that could solve 29 simultaneous equations with 29 unknowns.

Question 13

Grace Hopper

Answer 13

Found the first computer “bug” found in the Harvard Mark 1=I

Question 14

Colossus

Answer 14

Built during World War II by Britain for the purpose of breaking the cryptographic codes used by Germany

Question 15

ENIAC

Answer 15

1943 – 1945
Forefather of today’s all-electronic digital computers. Invented by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of University of Pennsylvania

Question 16

UNIVAC

Answer 16

1950’s
First commercial (mass produced) computer.
First computer to employ magnetic tape.
Predicted results of 1952 elections.