A. Do you know the derivation of the word "calculate?"
B. Yes, I do. It derived from the Latin "calculus" which means a small stone.
A. What were stones used for?
B. Stones were used for counting herds, lands and later money. B. Quite so, but the first calculating machines were primitive devices for the ordinary arithmetic operations and were called abacus.
A. So, those stones were the first prototype of our calculating
machines, weren't they?
B. Of course, I do. The first inventor was B. Pascal and later it was designed and completed by Leibniz.
A. But, nowadays almost everybody has a pocket calculating machine and can use it, but not everybody can call the inventor of this machine. Do you know who was the first inventor?
A, This invention was the beginning of a rapid progress, and what about the further development?
B. The further development was characterized by the invention of a machine with ellectromagnetic relays, and then it was invented transistor that permited to make complex operations with great speed.