NATS 1700 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Burroughs Corporation, Remington Rand, David Grier

• School: York University
• Department: Natural Science
• Course: NATS 1700
• Professor: Vera Pavri

Document Summary

Mahony (2005) there is not a single history of computing but multiple histories. David grier (2006) when computers were people individuals who performed (cid:862)(cid:272)o(cid:373)putatio(cid:374)s(cid:863) (cid:449)e(cid:396)e o(cid:396)igi(cid:374)all(cid:455) (cid:396)efe(cid:396)red to as computers. (cid:1005)(cid:1012)th a(cid:374)d (cid:1005)(cid:1013)th (cid:272)e(cid:374)tu(cid:396)(cid:455) (cid:862)hu(cid:373)a(cid:374)(cid:863) (cid:272)o(cid:373)pute(cid:396)s (cid:449)e(cid:396)e ofte(cid:374) used i(cid:374) la(cid:396)ge-scale info processing activities such as the production of mathematical tables in areas like astronomy, navigation and insurance. Human computers were people that had a knack for figures and mathematics, reliable and organized their work was based entirely on adding and subtracting figures - the only thing they were hired for. One of the first attempts at mechanizing what human computers (creating math tables) did (cid:449)as cha(cid:396)les ba(cid:271)(cid:271)age"s (cid:373)e(cid:272)ha(cid:374)i(cid:272)al diffe(cid:396)e(cid:374)(cid:272)e e(cid:374)gi(cid:374)e (cid:894)(cid:1005)(cid:1012)(cid:1006)(cid:1004)s to (cid:1005)(cid:1012)(cid:1007)(cid:1004)s(cid:895) Babbage wanted to create a machine for making tables that would be more accurate than those prepared by people who were prone to making errors gained a great deal of government support. Why were table errors considered so problematic? (hint: think ships and map making)