The ENIAC did not use the binary system. It's arithmetic processor used vacuum tubes wired together into rings, which worked like old desktop adding machine wheels. There were base ten contraptions. Since then, however, all electronic computers have done their arithmetic using binary system (base two).

Placeholding numerals, sometimes less sympathetically refereed to as "heathen cyphers," were popularized in Europe around year 1200 by Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci. Fibonacci was presumably relying on a work written in Arabic by al-Khwarizmi (whose name we see in the word algorithm) around year 820 in Baghdad. Like all European scholars of the day, Fibonacci was necessarily versed in Arabic.

Отредактировано Лис (2019-02-19 21:31:15)