Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau, Columbia University performed astronomical calculations representing the state of the art in computing. Eckert's publication of Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation in 1940, described techniques which were sufficiently advanced to solve differential equations, perform multiplication and division using floating point representations, all on punched cards and unit record machines. Leslie Comrie's articles on punch card methods and W.J. The warning printed on most cards intended for circulation as documents (checks, for example), 'Do not fold, spindle or mutilate,' became a motto for the post- World War II era. By 1950, the IBM card had become ubiquitous in industry and government. IBM developed punch card technology into a powerful tool for business data-processing and produced an extensive line of specialized unit record equipment. Hollerith's company eventually became the core of IBM. In 1890, the United States Census Bureau used punch cards and sorting machines designed by Herman Hollerith, to handle the flood of data from the decennial census mandated by the Constitution. In 1833, Charles Babbage moved on from developing his difference engine to developing a more complete design, the analytical engine, which would draw directly on Jacquard's punch cards for its programming. Herman Hollerith invented a tabulating machine using punch cards in the 1880s. The history of computing article is a related overview and treats methods intended for pen and paper, with or without the aid of tables. For a detailed timeline of events, see the computing timeline article. This article covers major developments in the history of computing hardware, and attempts to put them in context. Even today, an experienced abacus user using a device hundreds of years old can sometimes complete basic calculations more quickly than an unskilled person using an electronic calculator - though for more complex calculations, computers out-perform even the most skilled human. These seem to have been used by the merchants, accountants, and government officials of the time.Дevices to aid computation have changed from simple recording and counting devices to the abacus, the slide rule, analog computers, and more recent electronic computers. Something similar is found in early Minoan excavations. The earliest computing hardware was probably some form of tally stick later record keeping aids include Phoenician clay shapes which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, in containers. Computing hardware has been an important component of the process of calculation and data storage since it became useful for numerical values to be processed and shared.

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