Talk:Timeline of computing hardware before 1950

Untitled
Why are these tables much much wider than 100%? -- Marj 05:47 Sep 14, 2002 (UTC)

Something is wrong with our software: if the table requests "width=100%" then it will be too wide. Removing that request fixes it. The bug has already been reported. --Axel

Is it just me or does this sound like a rather absurd statement:

"Its main memory stored data as a series of acoustic pulses in 5 foot long tubes filled with mercury."

My knowledge of physics suggests that storing data as acoustic pulses in mercury is not plausible, but hey what do I know. --Tzuhou 19:12 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

It's true. The tubes were originally for radar, from what I've read. A transducer was at one end, and it basically acted as an echo chamber. Send out a tone, and you get it back a set period of time, (not long,) after. Do you find it stranger that a television tube could be used as a memory device? And RAM at that. 67.207.228.102 01:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

This page and history of computing are incorrectly titled. They seem to be about history of technology used in computing rather than history of computing itself. Obviously, most computing until recently was done with pencil and paper, and that is not mentioned in these timelines. Would anyone object to moving this page to timeline of computing technology 500 BC-1949 and starting a separate page that is about computing, not about machines used in computing? Michael Hardy 21:46, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Sorry about all the minor edits one after the other - every time I thought I had found all the typo's, I found another group. --Alex 22:22, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)

I find it very strange that the article does not mention at all the EDVAC project which introduced and documented what has become known as the von Neumann architecture, and which served as a model for several subsequent projects such as the IAS computer, JOHNIAC, EDSAC, ILLIAC, etc. Tsf 13:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

By my reading, the inventor of the EDVAC was actually beat to the punch by one of his students. 67.207.228.102 01:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

750 BCE - 1799CE
The use of the word "Indian" in the first section is ambiguous, is that a nickname? cohesion | talk 19:04, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Also, it states the first use of the Abacus at around 750 BC. The Abacus page states that the earliest use was 2400 BC. Could someone please verify which of this is correct and alter the other? The Jade Knight 03:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm going to have to dig out a few old high school history papers. I don't see the Atanasoff-Berry Calculator at all. Maybe later, when my main system is out of the shop. 67.207.228.102 01:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC) Never mind. I spotted it. 67.207.228.102 01:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I also had some confusion about the Abacus as the actual page states that it was the early Mesopotamians who were credited with the invention while this page states it was the Babylonians. Clarification would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snowmasster (talk • contribs) 07:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed Nazi symbolism
Hi all

I have removed the Nazi sign from the flags and replaced with standard German ones. The history shows that work on the Z1 Z2 etc (see here) was carried out with private funding, and, when Zuse was drafted into the army the work stopped only to be continued when he returned from service.

This means that Nazi funding was not used and the references to it should be removed.

--Chaosdruid (talk) 02:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Please read Konrad Zuse - the part about glide bombs. And that doesn't make him a bad person; we are (most of us) people of our time & place. 69.106.242.20 (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Why are Nazi flags used for Germany (corresponding to the flag which was official then), but the modern German flags for years like 1672 when it was not the official flag. Isn't that inconsistent? --91.4.58.11 (talk) 09:21, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Germany as a nation did not exist before 1870, I would suggest limiting flags to 1900 onwards.--TedColes (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Unreliable sources removed and tagged
Content from Muslimheritage.com / FSTC is an unreliable source, as discussed on Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_18#History_of_Science. None of its publications are peer-reviewed, and its authors often exhibit a strong bias and incomplete or flawed citation practices. The site has been used as a source in numerous science and history of science articles to make extraordinary claims about Islamic invention and discovery. I am working to remove these extraordinary claims where they stem directly and solely from a Muslimheritage.com reference. Many of these claims were added by a user who has a history of using flawed sources for extraordinary claims, as discussed on Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85. That page details numerous examples where claims from these sources contradict more reliable sources, on a scale which casts the entirety of the material originating from the site into doubt. If you would like to discuss this or any related removal with me, please leave a note on my talk page. Dialectric (talk) 18:37, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

I have also tagged a statement referenced to 'Turk J Elec Engin' as dubious - describing a geared 'lunisolar calendar' as 'an early example of a fixed-wired knowledge processing machine' seems like a stretch, and a more reliable source for the claim would be best. Dialectric (talk) 23:34, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

What is this article about??
I haven't carefully gone through this whole list, but what I've seen makes it look like a history of computing hardware. Did the history of computing during all those centuries really consist mostly of the history of hardware for computing? A century ago computers were people who used pencils and paper. How that was done is part of the history of computing. Computing hardware was a relatively small component of computing in general. Where's the history of that? Do those working on this article really think that computing is computing only if computing machines or mechanical devices are used, as opposed to the same kind of pencils and paper that could be used for writing a love letter? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:55, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * I didn't understand why actually Timeline of computing 2400 BC-1949 redirects here and not the opposite until reading this following Honesty:
 * Reading that grammerian Pāṇini is an hardware pioneer while he's not in List of pioneers in computer science sounds wrong even if a book is an hardware. Maybe Pāṇini should just be added/moved to List of pioneers in computer science.
 * What do you think about Pāṇini entry in this list? Can you help me sorting this out?
 * --Lacrymocéphale 13:42, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Honesty
I have moved the article and inserted a paragraph saying this article makes no attempt to be a timeline of computing, but rather only of hardware for computing during a time when computing was generally done without hardware, and that it omits the topic of how computing was done (which is 99.99% of the history of computing during that time). Michael Hardy (talk) 14:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Tense
Most entries use the past tense, but a few use the present tense. There should be a single, consistent style, and for past events, I think that it should be the past tense. --TedColes (talk) 15:50, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Z3 Turing complete
Isn't it generally accepted that the Z3 was Turing-complete? All references I can find point to the Z3 being Turing-complete but inpractical as a Turing-complete machine.

http://www.zib.de/zuse/Inhalt/Kommentare/Html/0684/universal2.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.80.40.162 (talk) 09:01, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 'Turing completeness' is often wrongly equated with 'general purpose'. They are not the same. Colossus has recently been shown to be Turing-complete in one sense, but was a very long way from being general purpose. --TedColes (talk) 14:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In the strictest sense, no finite machine is truly Turing complete.


 * Professor Benjamin Wells of the Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of San Francisco, has recently published a peer-reviewed paper which shows that a Universal Turing Machine could have been run on the set of Colossus computers. This means that Colossus satisfies the definition of 'Turing Complete' given in the Wikipedia article Turing completeness.


 * Wells states clearly in the paper's Footnote 7 that a Universal Turing Machine is not the same as a 'general purpose programmable computer'.

--TedColes (talk) 14:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Analog computers
It appears that this article is a Timeline of Digital computing hardware 2000 BC-1949 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 04:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Rename to "... 2400 BCE - 1949"

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Proposed title created as a redirect. Jenks24 (talk) 13:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BC–1949 → Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BCE–1949 – Wikipedia normaly uses the Common Era Notation for Dates. 84.188.93.21 (talk) 18:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:BCE. "Either convention may be appropriate. Do not change the established era style in an article unless there are reasons specific to its content. Seek consensus on the talk page before making the change. Open the discussion under a subhead that uses the word "era". Briefly state why the style is inappropriate for the article in question. A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change." (Bold in original, italics mine.) No reason has been given why BC/AD is "inappropriate" to this topic. Egsan Bacon (talk) 22:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose unnecessary, etc. &mdash;innotata 05:13, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment if this isn't moved, a redirect should be created ; also another using "1949CE" -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:17, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per this ngram. La crème de la crème (talk) 10:37, 27 August 2014 (UTC) Sockpuppet investigations/Kauffner
 * Oppose per the wise comments above. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:04, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Timeline of computing hardware 2400 BC–1949. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080316213956/http://binomial.csuhayward.edu:80/India.html to http://binomial.csuhayward.edu/India.html

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Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 04:09, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Non-hardware
There are some items in the list that, while very important, are not hardware. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I suggest spliting this page to "Timeline of computer science before 1950", moving all the conceptual stuff (which is indeed important) to there. What remains here should be just anything related to a physical object or mechanism, even if possibly never implemented. Nngnna (talk) 14:55, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Memory aids are not computers
Memory aids such as abaci, tally sticks, chalkboards, and paper are not capable of computation and therefore not computing hardware. — Sean Brunnock (talk) 10:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Physical memory is computing hardware. Tally sticks and abaci are not inherently different than RAM. Both store a certain amount of digital information. The difference is that ones are designed to interface with a Human processor, and the other with an electronic one. This is not a history only of complete integrated computers. But of computing hardware.--Nngnna (talk) 12:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Physical memory is not computing hardware. They can't compute anything. Look at the timeline. There are no entries for hardware such as capacitors or magnetic tape. Because they can't compute anything. — Sean Brunnock (talk) 13:25, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Both the name and the previous content of the article indicate it's about computing hardware, not about computers. Memory is computing hardware. It's essential for any serious computing. In the case of human computers, the human themselves aren't hardware. So only the parts that aren't human warrent mentioning on this article.--Nngnna (talk) 09:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * May I suggest Dispute resolution? — Sean Brunnock (talk) 11:48, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Algorithms are not computers
Algorithms and mathematical concepts or techniques are not hardware. — Sean Brunnock (talk) 10:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Defination of Computing
computation involves calculation. How is this defined in the article? Many devices listed such as clocks, automaton, and gears many not fit into this definition. SKAG123 (talk) 04:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)


 * History of computing hardware and History of computing appear to be even more liberal in what constitutes a computer. I'm not sure which devices you're concerned about. The 2 oldest devices are the Antikythera mechanism and the South-pointing chariot. Both devices are analog computers which used differential gears to perform computations. Computation doesn't necessarily involve calculation. Sean Brunnock (talk) 13:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)