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2 EVOLUTION OF COMPUTERS (or) HISTORY OF COMPUTERS The need for a device to do calculations along with the growth in commerce and other human activities explain the evolution of computers. 1.2.1 Sand Tables In ancient times, people used fingers to perform the calculations such as addition and subtraction. Even today, simple calculations are done on fingers. Soon, mankind realized that it would be easier to do calculations with pebbles as compared to fingers. Consequently, pebbles were used to represent numbers, which led to the development of sand tables (see Figure 1.2). They are known to be the earliest device for computation. A sand table consists of three grooves in the sand with a maximum of 10 pebbles in each groove. To increase the count by one, a pebble has to be added in the right-hand groove. When 10 pebbles were collected in the right groove, they were removed and one pebble was added to the adjacent left groove. Afterwards, sand tables were modified extensively and these modifications resulted in a device known as Abacus.

Figure 1.2. A Sand Table Showing 125 (Ref: Computer fundamentals and programming in c by Anitha Goel & Ajay Mittal) 1.2.2 Abacus