In the past sixty years or so, computers have migrated from room-size megaboxes to desktops to laptops to our pockets. But the real history of machine-assisted human computation (“computer” originally referred to the person, not the machine) goes back even further. This week is Computer Science Education Week, and to kick things off the World Science Festival celebrates the long history of man’s best friend, the computer. First in the historical record was the abacus, helping the ancient...
