The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid

calculation to modern day computers. Before the 20th century, most calculations were done by
humans. Early mechanical tools to help humans with digital calculations, such as the abacus, were
called "calculating machines", by proprietary names, or even as they are now, calculators. The
machine operator was called the computer.
The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up
the initial values of an elementary arithmetic operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the
result. Later, computers represented numbers in a continuous form, for instance distance along a
scale, rotation of a shaft, or a voltage. Numbers could also be represented in the form of digits,
automatically manipulated by a mechanical mechanism. Although this approach generally required
more complex mechanisms, it greatly increased the precision of results. A series of breakthroughs,
such as miniaturized transistor computers, and the integrated circuit, caused digital computers to
largely replace analog computers. The cost of computers gradually became so low that by the
1990s, personal computers, and then, in the 2000s, mobile computers, (smartphones and tablets)
became ubiquitous in industrialized countries.