LIVING IN THE I.T.

ERA
A period that has a particular quality or character. We are living in an era in which technology is
developing very rapidly.....

Prepared by
Prof. KT. V. FORTUNY, MSICT
Prof. ROBINSON E. JOAQUIN. MIT
Prof. ANN CAMILLE M. MAUPAY, MIT
Prof. MARK ANTHONY S. MERCADO, MIT
Prof. CHARITO M. MOLINA, MIT
The Mechanical Age
(1450 - 1840)

Week 5-6
Introduction/overview

Week 5 to 6 is an overview of Information Technology with regards to the different discoveries during the
mechanical age and the people or civilization that were behind it.
Learning Goals/objectives

At the end of the lessons, the student will be able understand and expand their:

• Insight of the mechanical age.

• Knowledge of the race and civilization behind the discoveries.
• Insight on how the mechanical age discoveries inspires the next age, Electro-Mechanical Age.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Shickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Johann Gutenberg
Movable metal-type printing
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Shickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Johann Gutenberg
Movable metal-type printing
Johannes Gutenberg, in full Johann Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg, (born 14th
century, Mainz, Germany), German craftsman and inventor who originated a method of printing from
movable type. 

Gutenberg is generally credited with the invention of practical movable type. He made metal molds,
into which he could pour hot liquid metal, in order to produce separate letters as the same shape as
those written by hand. These letters were similar, more readable, and more durable than wooden
blocks. Such letters could be arranged and rearranged many times as the printer wished to create
different pages from the same letters.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Shickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

John Napier
Napier’s Bones
John Napier, Napier also spelled Neper, (born 1550, Merchiston Castle, near Edinburgh, Scot.—died
April 4, 1617, Merchiston Castle), Scottish mathematician and theological writer who originated the
concept of logarithms as a mathematical device to aid in calculations.

Nearing the end of his life, John Napier, who is generally considered the inventor of logarithms,
developed an ingenious arithmetic trick - not as remarkable as logs, but very useful all the same. His
invention was a method for performing arithmetic operations by the manipulation of rods, called
bones because they were often constituted from bones and printed with digits. Napier’s rods
essentially rendered the complex processes of multiplication and division into the comparatively
simple tasks of addition and subtraction.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Wilhelm Schickard
Calculating Machine
In 1623, Schickard invented a calculating machine, called by his contemporaries the Speeding Clock or
Calculating Clock. It preceded the less versatile Pascaline of Pascal and Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner by
twenty years.

Schickard's letters to Johannes Kepler show how to use the machine for calculating astronomical
tables. The machine could add and subtract six-digit numbers and indicated an overflow of this
capacity by ringing a bell; to add more complex calculations, a set of Napier's bones were mounted on
it. Schickard's letters mention that the original machine was destroyed in a fire while still incomplete.
The designs were lost until the 19th century; a working replica was finally constructed in 1960.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Blaise Pascal
Pascaline
Pascaline, also called Arithmetic Machine, the first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used. The
Pascaline was designed and built by the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644. It could only do
addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its dials. Pascal invented the machine for his father, a tax
collector, so it was the first business machine too (if one does not count the abacus). He built 50 of them over the next 10 years.

The Pascaline, or Arithmetic Machine, was a French monetary (non-decimal) calculator designed by Blaise Pascal about 1642. Numbers
could be added by turning the wheels (located along the bottom of the machine) clockwise and subtracted by turning the wheels
counterclockwise. Each digit in the answer was displayed in a separate window, visible at the top of the photograph.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Gottfried Leibniz
Leibniz’ Calculating Machine
In 1671 the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz designed a calculating
machine called the Step Reckoner. (It was first built in 1673.) The Step Reckoner expanded on Pascal's
ideas and did multiplication by repeated addition and shifting.

Leibniz was a strong advocate of the binary system. Binary numbers are ideal for machines because
they require only two digits, which can easily be represented by the on and off states of a switch.
When computers became electronic, the binary system was particularly appropriate because an
electrical circuit is either on or off. This meant that on could represent true, off could represent false,
and the flow of current would directly represent the flow of logic.

Leibniz was prescient in seeing the appropriateness of the binary system in calculating machines, but
his machine did not use it. Instead, the Step Reckoner represented numbers in decimal form, as
positions on 10-position dials. Even decimal representation was not a given: in 1668 Samuel Morland
invented an adding machine specialized for British money—a decidedly non-decimal system.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Joseph-Marie Jacquard
Jacquard Machine
Joseph-Marie Jacquard was a French weaver whose job was very hard. He had to do several tasks at
the same time to make a piece of cloth. In 1801 he invented the Jacquard Loom. It was a weaving
machine that was controlled by punched cards. While the loom was pumped ,cards with holes in them
were attached together in a pattern through which strings of thread were automatically fed. These
cards would feed the right pieces of thread into the thread into the loom to make the cloth.

The introduction of these looms caused the riots against the replacement of people by machines.
Weavers today still use the Jacquard Loom as it makes
cloth faster and better.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar

Arithmometer
Early calculating machine, built in 1820 by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar of France. Whereas earlier
calculating machines, such as Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline in France and Gottfried Wilhelm von
Leibniz’s Step Reckoner in Germany, were mere curiosities, with the Industrial Revolution came a
widespread need to perform repetitive operations efficiently.

De Colmar effectively met this challenge when he built his Arithmometer, the first commercial mass-
produced calculating device. Based on Leibniz’s technology, it could perform addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and, with some more elaborate user involvement, division. It was extremely popular
and sold for 90 years. In contrast to the modern calculator’s credit-card size, the Arithmometer was
large enough to cover a desktop.
3.1.1 Johann Gutenberg, John Napier, Wilhelm Schickard, Wilhelm Oughtred, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz,
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage, Ada Augusta Byron

Charles Babbage & Ada Augusta Byron

Analytical Engine
Generally considered the first computer, designed and partly built by the English inventor Charles
Babbage in the 19th century (he worked on it until his death in 1871). While working on the Difference
Engine, a simpler calculating machine commissioned by the British government, Babbage began to
imagine ways to improve it. Chiefly he thought about generalizing its operation so that it could
perform other kinds of calculations. By the time funding ran out for his Difference Engine in 1833, he
had conceived of something far more revolutionary: a general-purpose computing machine called
the Analytical Engine.

Contains the “mill” (functionally analogous to a modern computer's central processing unit) and a
printing mechanism.
Exercise or other learning activities
Determine the correct order of the process of using the Johann Gutenberg Movable-Movable metal-type
printer. Put number 1-5 in the circles. 1-start & 5-end

Putting the Flatbed on the Presser Putting ink in the metal letters Turning the Presser

Verifying the print Putting the paper to the Flatbed

Exercise or other learning activities
Determine the correct order of the process of using the Johann Gutenberg Movable-Movable metal-type
printer. Put number 1-5 in the circles. 1-start & 5-end

Putting the Flatbed on the Presser Putting ink in the metal letters Turning the Presser

3 1 4
5 2
Verifying the print Putting the paper to the Flatbed
Assignment
Answer the following & put it in the provided answer sheet.

Week 5-6: Create an essay with your own words and understanding. If you were to take ONE(1)
Mechanical Age Technology to Pre-Mechanical Age, what technology would it be and why. You can
research about the different technologies of Mechanical Age aside from the technologies discussed in this
module.

Grading: 40 points. Write 250 – 300 words essay, answer as comprehensibly as possible.

Criteria Points
Content 10
Organization of concept 10
Neatness 10
Completeness 10
Total Points 40

16
Sources:

1. https://tcf.ua.edu/AZ/ITHistoryOutline.htm

2. https://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/gutenbergmovable.html

3. https://www.britannica.com/biography

4. http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/calculators/napier/about.html

5. http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5921/Wilhelm-Schickard-invented-a-calculating-machine/

6. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Pascaline

7. http://www.gwleibniz.com/calculator/calculator.html

8. http://ryarbrofl.tripod.com/Introduction_to_computers/lesson_3_a_counting_tools.htm

9. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Analytical-Engine

10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLctAw4JZXE
Images:

1. https://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/gutenbergmovable.html

2. https://lithub.com/so-gutenberg-didnt-actually-invent-the-printing-press/

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier%27s_bones

5. https://medium.com/predict/the-inventor-of-first-mechanical-calculator-wilhelm-schickard-2c1145733d61

6. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Pascaline

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_reckoner

8. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Jacquard-loom

9. https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/history-of-science-and-technology-including-fossils-minerals-and
-meteorites/a-thomas-de-colmar-arithmometer-french-ca-1880

10. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Analytical-Engine