A. The Pre-mechanical Age: 3000 B.C - !$50 A.

1. Writing and Alphabets

First human communicated only through speaking and simple drawings know as petroglyhs
(sings or figures carved in rock). Many of these are pictographs – pictures or sketches that
visually resemble that which is depicted.

2. Paper and pens- input technologies.

 Sumerians input technology was a stylus that could scratch marks in wet clay.
 About 2600 B.C., the Egyptians wrote on the papyrus plant.
 Around 100 A.D., the Chinese made paper from rags, on which modern-day paper-
making is based.

3. Books and Libraries – output technologies

 Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept the earliest “book”
 The Egyptians kept scrolls.
 Around 600 B.C., the Greeks began to fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves and
them together.

4. The First Numbering Systems

 Egyptian system:
The numbers 1-9 as vertical lines, the number 10 as a U or circle, the number 100 as a
coiled rope, and the number 1,999 as a lotus blossom.
 The first numbering systems similar to those in use today were invented between 100
and 200 A.D. by Hindus in India who created a nine-digit numbering system.
 Around 875 A.D., the concept of zero was developed.

5. The First Calculators: The Abacus.

One of the very first information processors.

The abacus was man first recorded adding machine .it was in 500 b.c when the abacus is