Computers that used to be human
SMRTR summary
Before Excel spreadsheets and electronic calculators, the British East India Company employed human "Computers" to crunch the numbers on colonial trade duties. A 1784 parliamentary report complained that the tax calculations had "become so difficult, from the Number of Branches of Duties" that "very few Persons can be found capable of transacting this Business."
These human Computers were real people with names and paychecks. US Naval Observatory records from 1903 list employees like "Computer Eleanor A. Lamson" and "Miscellaneous Computer Clara M. Upton," working contracts ranging from two weeks to eight months.
As chronicled in "Hidden Figures," human computers—mostly women—continued calculating alongside electronic machines well into the 1960s, armed with slide rules and lookup tables. Similarly, "Calculators" were once people too, defined in a 1656 English dictionary as "a caster of accounts, a Reckoner." The word "reckon" itself once meant precise mathematical computation rather than today's casual guess, giving us phrases like "the day of reckoning."
SMRTR provides this summary for quick context. The original article belongs to Hacker News.
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