All About Hand-Held and Briefcase-Portable Computers [antikvár]

PREFACE Less than 10 years before this book was written, science-fiction writers were concocting stories about personal computers you could hold in your hand. Since that time we have bridged the gap between fantasy and reality as far as hand-held and briefcase-portable computers are concerned. But the real beginning of the story about hand-held computers doesn't go back just the 10 years to 1973 or even back the 40 or so years to the first commercial use of computers. Rather, mankind's quest for hand-held computing devices goes back to 2200 b.c. in Babylonia and the origin of the abacus—the first hand-held computing device. Can you imagine the excitement back in 2200 b.c., when the first popular use of the abacus represented a methodological leap forward from counting by fingers or with sticks or stones? (Was there a storyteller or scribe in Babylonia over 4000 years ago who conveyed the story All About the New Hand-Held Abacus'? Given that everyone in the Babylonia of 2200 e.g. is related to someone alive today, is this story a continuation of one a relative of yours or mine told over 4000 years before?) While the story of hand-held computing devices begins over 4000 years ago, the revolution that's occurred in stored-program computers IX