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[科普，笔记] 计算机 computer （二）早期历史 Early history （关联：“自然运算”）

已有 767 次阅读 2025-7-27 21:40 |个人分类:先进的信息理论与技术|系统分类:科研笔记

[科普，笔记] 计算机 computer （二）早期历史 Early history （关联：“自然运算”）

一、计算历史 History of computing

计算机可能被简单地描述为“一种自动执行常规计算的设备”。这样的定义之所以具有欺骗性，是因为它将计算视为一个严格的数学过程。事实上，计算是许多通常不被认为是数学的活动的基础。例如，穿过一个房间需要许多复杂的、尽管是潜意识的计算。计算机也被证明能够解决大量问题，从平衡支票簿到甚至以机器人引导系统的形式穿过房间。

A computer might be described with deceptive simplicity as “an apparatus that performs routine calculations automatically.” Such a definition would owe its deceptiveness to a naive and narrow view of calculation as a strictly mathematical process. In fact, calculation underlies many activities that are not normally thought of as mathematical. Walking across a room, for instance, requires many complex, albeit subconscious, calculations. Computers, too, have proved capable of solving a vast array of problems, from balancing a checkbook to even—in the form of guidance systems for robots—walking across a room.

早期历史 Early history

计算机前体 Computer precursors

算盘 The abacus

已知最早的计算设备可能是算盘。它至少可以追溯到公元前1100年，至今仍在使用，特别是在亚洲。

The earliest known calculating device is probably the abacus. It dates back at least to 1100 BCE and is still in use today, particularly in Asia.

算盘是一种数字设备；也就是说，它离散地表示值。

The abacus is a digital device; that is, it represents values discretely.

模拟计算器：从纳皮尔对数到计算尺 Analog calculators: from Napier’s logarithms to the slide rule

当苏格兰数学家约翰·纳皮尔于1614年发表他的对数发现时，计算设备发生了不同的转变。

Calculating devices took a different turn when John Napier, a Scottish mathematician, published his discovery of logarithms in 1614.

1620年，英国数学家Edmund Gunter创造了余弦和余切这两个术语，他建造了一种用于进行导航计算的装置：Gunter标尺，或者，正如航海家们简单地称之为Gunter。

In 1620 Edmund Gunter, the English mathematician who coined the terms cosine and cotangent, built a device for performing navigational calculations: the Gunter scale, or, as navigators simply called it, the gunter.

数字计算器：从计算时钟到算术表 Digital calculators: from the Calculating Clock to the Arithmometer

1623年，德国天文学家和数学家Wilhelm Schickard建造了第一台计算器。

In 1623 the German astronomer and mathematician Wilhelm Schickard built the first calculator.

第一台可以生产任何数量并实际使用的计算器或加法机是Pascaline，即算术机，由法国数学家哲学家布莱斯·帕斯卡在1642年至1644年间设计和建造。

The first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used was the Pascaline, or Arithmetic Machine, designed and built by the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644.

1671年，德国数学家兼哲学家戈特弗里德·威廉·冯·莱布尼茨设计了一台名为“步数计算器”的计算器。

In 1671 the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz designed a calculating machine called the Step Reckoner.

1820年，法国的Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar成功地应对了这一挑战，他建造了第一台商业批量生产的计算设备——算术仪。

In 1820 Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar of France effectively met this challenge when he built his Arithmometer, the first commercial mass-produced calculating device.

二、第一台计算机 The first computer

https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-107667-1493539.html

https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-107667-1493837.html

https://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-107667-1494150.html

参考资料：

[1] Computer，2025-06-16，britannica

https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer