Introduction

Until the late 1940s the accepted meaning of the word computer was a person who carries out a series of mathematical calculations , usually according to a set of rules an algorithm but sometimes as part of a production line where each person (computer) took the result from the previous one, performed their allotted calculation and passed the result on to the next person.

An algorithm is a rule or process for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps; this rule or process would be determined by a mathematician and given as instructions to one or more computers. The computers would then perform the appropriate calculations and return the finished answer, with any mistakes that they had made!

To speed up the process and help reduce the errors that the human calculators made, mechanical calculators that could add, subtract, multiply, divide and later also sort in order of size were introduced. To reduce the transcribing errors at each stage the data was punched into cards rather than being written down. The punch card idea was borrowed from a method of setting up weaving looms to repeatedly produce the same complex pattern, named after its inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard.

The scene was therefore set for the evolution of the computer as we currently know it. The computer the person who followed the algorithm using their calculator to perform the steps of calculation, was replaced by a controller and the algorithm became...