Reborn Tech Maniac

Chapter 57 Computers and Zhouyi
On the way, Lin Fengjiao took a few glances at Tang Huan whose expression had softened, and then bravely said, "It's all my fault for bringing Hu Yinmeng here and causing a lot of trouble."

"What does it have to do with you? It can only be said to be unlucky." Tang Huan waved his hand indifferently.

Lin Fengjiao breathed a sigh of relief, as long as his sweetheart doesn't mind.

Because Tang Huan planned to take Lin Fengjiao to the United States for a few days after the Golden Horse Awards, so when he returned to his apartment, Lin Fengjiao began to pack various items, such as scripts he needed to read.

Soon, Jian Mingren, Shi Chongtang and others came to visit one after another.

Jian Mingren and his team assembled 50 Fangyuan computers with parts transported by air from Zheru headquarters in the United States before, allowing the official statistics department of Baodao to realize the office modernization on the occasion of the big man’s birthday, and all parties involved have achieved results and face , so the company's public relations are even more comfortable.

"Relevant parties would like to invite you to give a speech at the university tomorrow to introduce the latest cutting-edge computer technology." Jian Mingren said with a smile.

Tang Huan pondered for a moment. The Beautiful Island Incident will break out next month. Any conflicts have a cumulative process. There must be various signs now. He really doesn't want to spend too much time in non-business places at this time. Show your face.

"Is there anything to introduce? If I don't say hello in advance, I haven't prepared relevant materials." Tang Huan declined.

"Actually, it's just a pretense to build relationships. In the past, it was enough to just gossip. This is a very good opportunity to expand our brand. Not to mention other benefits, at least it will help recruit some elite students to join the company." Jian Mingren is very enthusiastic.

When Tang Huan heard this, he thought it was the same reason, so he nodded, "Okay, then I'll go bragging tomorrow."

Everyone chatted for a while, seeing that it was late, they all got up and said goodbye and left.

Since he was going to give a speech tomorrow, he had to prepare an outline, so Tang Huan asked Lin Fengjiao to bring him a pen and paper.

"You lost your gold pen in the restaurant, use another pen to deal with it first." Lin Fengjiao explained.

Tang Huan nodded and began to think about the content of tomorrow's speech. The computer looked sophisticated, but it was inevitably boring, and he didn't know what the level of college students here was, so he really needed to put some thought into it.

When he was almost done, Tang Huan got up and walked gently into the bedroom, and saw Lin Fengjiao sitting on the bedside reading the script.

"Why don't you take a break? The Golden Horse Awards will be presented tomorrow. It's impossible if you don't have enough energy." Tang Huan joked.

"Wait for you." Lin Fengjiao smiled sweetly.

"Jiaojiao is so considerate." Tang Huan praised.

……

Tang Huan glanced at the crowded students in the audience, and couldn't help but swear in his heart, he must not be so popular, he should be the organizer of the event.

Fortunately, he didn't plan to talk about any boring technical topics last night, otherwise a lot of the crowd fell asleep, which would affect the mood too much.

Tang Huan glanced at the accompanying staff, and seeing that the other party indicated that they were ready, he slowly said: "We Chinese like to tell history, so I will chat with you casually today, the development history before the advent of electronic computers .”

It can be said that modern electronic computers originated from mechanical calculators.

In ancient times, the most famous calculator was of course the abacus invented by our ancestors, but like the four great inventions, it just started a brilliant start, and then gradually became a bystander in the long history.

In 1642, Blaise Pascal, who was under 19 years old, in order to reduce the burden of his father's double calculation of tax revenue and expenditure, manufactured a decimal mechanical calculator that could perform addition and subtraction, that is, the Pascal calculator.

At the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris and the Zwinger Museum in Dresden, Germany, you can see the first two Pascal calculators built, machines that would become the precursors of early computer engineering.

……

When Hu Yinmeng rushed to the university, he realized that he was late, and Tang Huan's speech had already started.

Seeing so many spectators at the scene, the female Wenqing naturally wanted to scold the organizer of the event in her heart, she was very happy, and then hid in a corner to watch the excitement boredly.

……

In 1667, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz saw Pascal's calculator in a Paris museum and was immediately attracted to it.

He believed that since a mechanical calculator could perform addition, it should also be able to perform multiplication.

In 1673, Leibniz finally invented the first multiplier. After continuous improvement, it finally became a real calculator that can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and find square roots.

We all know that without binary, there would be no modern computer, and it was Leibniz who proposed binary, studied the algorithm, and initially created logical algebra.

Leibniz is a rare generalist in history. He is known as the Aristotle of the seventeenth century and occupies an important position in the history of mathematics and philosophy.

In mathematics, Leibniz and Newton independently invented calculus successively, and the mathematical notation of calculus he used is more widely used, because the notation used by Newton is generally considered to be worse than that of Leibniz.

In philosophy, Leibniz's optimism is also very famous, and he can be regarded as the first European to come into contact with Chinese culture.

In 1689, Leibniz traveled in Italy, got acquainted with missionaries who had returned from the Qing Dynasty, and saw the gossip in the "Book of Changes" rearranged by scholars in the Song Dynasty.

In essence, the yin and yang gossip in "Book of Changes" contains a kind of binary idea. Whether Leibniz invented binary system was influenced by "Zhouyi" or not, there is no need to entangle. For the sake of the so-called face, it is necessary to forcefully find some sense of pride.

What I just want to say is that in the long history of computer development, our Chinese thoughts have also shone with wisdom in this field.

……

Holding Tang Huan's golden pen, Hu Yinmeng was writing and drawing casually in the notebook, while occasionally looking up at the stage. As for the amazed eyes of the boy next to him, she was directly ignored by the female Wenqing.

The so-called speech means acting in addition to speaking. All kinds of celebrities in the United States have to show off in this way. Naturally, Hu Yinmeng is no stranger to this.

Seeing that Tang Huan didn't take the manuscript, but just stood on the stage and talked freely, a thought flashed in Nu Wenqing's mind, this Tang Huan looked a little different from those businessmen who were full of money.

……

In the 19th century, Britain, known as the sun never sets, had a large number of overseas colonies, and its navigation industry has always been valued by the ruling class.

As early as 1776, the United Kingdom issued nautical tables for use by the military and commercial organizations.

However, the calculation of the nautical table is complicated and requires many people to work together. The monotonous data calculation and the improper cooperation of the calculation personnel make the calculation results often wrong and difficult to detect.

In the process of use, more and more errors and loopholes were found in the nautical table, and even hundreds of ships sank on the rocks because of this, and it was necessary to correct it.

In 1823, the United Kingdom issued a reward for those who could correct the nautical table, and the mathematician Charles Babbage unveiled the list.

He believes that an automatic calculation machine can be made to replace humans to complete those complex tasks. The process from calculation to output is completely automated, so that calculation errors, transcription errors, proofreading errors, printing errors, etc. can be completely eliminated. Negligence.

Although the idea was scoffed at by many, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, recognized its feasibility and invested £1500 for Babbage to develop an automatic calculating machine start-up capital.

In 1835, Babbage's difference engine was successfully developed.

In terms of design, Babbage drew on the basic ideas of Pascal and Leibniz, and the innovation is that the difference engine uses three gear sets as the memory of the data involved in the calculation process.

This is the difference between a difference engine and a calculator. Instead of only completing one arithmetic operation at a time, it can perform polynomial calculations according to pre-arranged steps.

After completing the Difference Engine with three memories, Babbage began designing a Difference Engine with seven memories.

However, during the manufacturing process, he repeatedly revised the design in pursuit of perfection, and the processing errors of many components exceeded the technical capabilities at the time, and finally ended in failure, and the semi-finished product was sent to the museum.

Although the second difference engine was never built, the idea of ​​modern computers began to sprout.

Babbage divided the Difference Engine into three parts: the memory unit, the read and write data unit, and the data operation unit.

The three major components work together in division of labor, each performing its own duties.This idea has been adopted by the designers of modern computers.

Tang Huan picked up the chalk, turned around and drew a schematic diagram on the blackboard.

……

After losing R&D funding, Babbage continued to work, designed a more complex machine on the drawing board - the Analytical Engine, proposed the concept of programming, and introduced punched cards.

Punched cards were used not only to record data, but also to store instructions for controlling machines.

When the machine is working, it reads the punched card and executes the instructions sequentially. This sequence of actions is the working program of the machine.

Different holes are punched on the card, and the machine has different working procedures.

When different work tasks are to be completed, there is no need to replace the machine itself, only the perforation arrangement on the card is designed. This is the software design idea of ​​modern computers.

The structure of the Analytical Engine is more like a modern computer, but limited by Babbage's own economic situation and technical processing capabilities at that time, the Analytical Engine was also not completed.

Babbage's design ideas on the Analytical Machine were considered absurd by people at the time. How could a machine replace the human brain?Absolutely impossible.Even when Babbage died in 1871, The Times mocked his failure in an obituary.

After Babbage's death, the design drawings and spare parts of his analytical machine were collected by museums, and people have forgotten them.

It wasn't until the 40s and [-]s that it was discovered by Dr. Howard Aiken of the Computing Laboratory of Harvard University when he consulted information for designing computers.

Only then did people realize how correct and important Babbage's computer design ideas are.

It is precisely because of the design concepts of the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine, and the actual manufacture of some machines, that Babbage is regarded as a computer pioneer.

But how many years have humans wasted in the middle?Tang Huan wrote down the numbers 1871 and 1940 on the blackboard.

……

Hu Yinmeng calculated on the notebook subconsciously, then snorted, and just did the calculation directly.

……

As humans moved from the age of steam to the age of electricity, some engineers and scientists began to consider replacing gears and some transmission parts in mechanical computers with electrical components.

In 1884, Hollerith used the principles of electricity and binary arithmetic to invent an electric tabulating machine, which was first successfully used in the U.S. census.

In 1896, Hollerys established the Tabulation Machine Company. Electric tabulation machines were widely used in various statistics and gradually developed into a new industry.

In 1911, due to health and poor management, Holleris' company merged with the Metering Company and the International Timing Company to become the Chronograph Metering and Measuring Company, namely CRT, but it still suffered heavy losses in the following three years, so the board of directors invited Thomas Watson .

Watson borrowed from the bank to develop a new electric tabulator, coupled with excellent marketing, the company's performance is booming.

In 1924, Watson changed the name of CTR to IBM and became the actual founder of Big Blue.

Thanks to Watson's promotion, electric tabulating machines became extremely popular in business computing, and even in the 60s, they were still used by companies.

In 1939, Watson provided Howard Aiken with $100 million in cash and equipment funding to develop a general-purpose computer based on Babbage's Analytical Engine and using mechanical and electrical components.

In 1944, MARK-I, which consisted of multiple IBM electric tabulating machines, thousands of relays, and gears for memory functions, was successfully developed.

In 1946, MARK-II, which is composed entirely of relays, was successfully developed.

At this point, the development of electromechanical computers has reached its peak.

After that, came the era of electronic computers that everyone is familiar with. Characters such as Alan Turing and von Neumann appeared on the stage one after another. The internal structure of computers developed from electron tubes and transistors to today's integrated circuits.

……

Tang Huan smiled, "Although there are so many components and parts of the computer, the main design idea is still the same. Imagine in your mind that the ancestor Fuxi used tree branches to place the eight symbols of yin and yang on the ground, Combining with each other for deduction, it seems that we are not so behind."

(End of this chapter)