The Mechanical Age: 1450 - 1840

· Early 1600s, William Oughtred, an English clergyman, invented the slide rule

• Early example of an analog computer.

· The Pascaline. Invented by Blaise Pascal (1623-62).

1. The First Information Explosion.

1. Johann Gutenberg (Mainz, Germany)

§ Invented the movable metal-type printing process in 1450.

2. The development of book indexes and the widespread use of page numbers.

2. The first general purpose "computers"

o Actually people who held the job title "computer: one who works with numbers."

Slide Rules, the Pascaline and Leibniz's Machine