Do me a favour, I want you to figure out the answer to the sum: 4 + 7?

You’ve got the answer? That’s great, keep hold of it.

Most of you might have performed the addition in your head – the way that we learn to do small sums at the lowest level of primary education.

However, there are several ways you could have gone about doing that sum…

The word ‘calculate’ comes from the Latin ‘calculus,’ meaning ‘small stone.’ This originates from an old form of calculation, where small stones were gathered and used to count.

This is still taught as a method in primary education, wherein pictures or objects are substituted for the value of a whole to visually help children understand counting.

Another method of counting comes from the ‘Palaeolithic’ or ‘Old Stone Age,’ where drawings were used to count.

Caves Lascaux and Chauvet in the South of France house some of the earliest evidence of drawings where Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens would draw large animals to keep track of the numbers of wildlife.

They date back around 17,000 years ago, and unfortunately were closed to the public in 1963, due to deterioration, since they have been restored and replicas created.

Okay, so I’m sure that no matter which way you went about the sum, you got the answer 11.

Please add 43 to that…

With this bigger number, an unlikely (yet still valid) way you may have gone about working out the answer, is with the use of an abacus.

The earliest abacus’ date back to 2400 BC, but the method of ‘calculus’ using small stones was flawed with larger calculations, as one would have to gather large amounts of stones.

This evolved into early Phoenician and Greek abacus’ where stones of varying sizes – coordinating to differing values – were used in a ‘dust box.’

By 500 BC this progressed into the Babylonian abacus, which contained grooves for the stones to slide into, and the Salinas abacus in 300 BC, which used counters on a slab of marble to track the value of currency.

The Roman hand abacus was used between 27 BC and 400 AD and was the first portable abacus of similar design to the Babylonian.

Now you might not have used any of these methods at all, but the answer was 54.

From here, multiply the answer by 3…

In 1300 AD, this sum would have been possible with the Chinese suan pan, which developed the Roman handheld device into a board with rods and counters that also allowed for multiplication, division, and square roots, as well as the traditional addition and subtraction.

However, the first device most closely resembling the abacus you may have used in school, is the Russian Russkie Schoty, based on the Chinese design, which emerged around 1658.

In the middle of the 17th century, the ‘side rule’ was also developed, an analogue device that either slides sideways or around a point and allows for larger calculations. Though, I doubt you used it for your own sum as it takes specific knowledge to use and is now an outdated solution.

So, the answer to the last sum was 162, a larger number than we have worked with previously.

For the next problem, I would like you to square it…

The first mechanical calculator that emerged, able to solve this problem quickly was Pascal’s mechanical calculator from the 17th century. Although, the invention of the digital calculator didn’t come until much later.

We can track the early origins to WWII when systems like the Sperry-Norden bombsight, the US Navy’s Torpedo Data Computer and the Kerrison Predictor AA fire control system employed a mixture of mechanical and electronic parts to accurately deploy bombs, missiles, and torpedoes.

The Colossus was a decoding machine used in WWII to decode German military transmissions. It was the first digital computer and a step towards modern digital calculators.

Finally, in 1941 ENIAC was developed, the world’s first digital calculator capable of quickly solving large numerical problems, but it wasn’t until the 60s when the first desktop calculator, ANITA, was released, a smaller package to the earlier ENIAC.

This all leads back to you and how you solved my final problem; 162 squared?

The Answer is of course 26,244, but I doubt you used the 1941 ENIAC computer or ANITA.

You may have used a digital calculator, which is still used today in households and schools, a tool that many people are acquainted with.

However, I presume that you used the calculator on your mobile phone – the most modern form of performing numerical calculations.

You might be thinking, where’s this going?

Counting systems and calculators were the early stages of our evolution towards computers and mobile phones, which hold together our lives in the digital age.

You could have completed all the requested calculations on your mobile phone (which I’m sure many of you did), this shows how the system of counting has evolved from the palaeolithic era to modernity, where problems like number sizes, multiplication, division, square roots, mechanical and digital hurdles have been overcome.

Technology is evolving at an exponential rate, improving every day, yet, you could have used any of the methods listed for several of the sums, and as highlighted, many are still used today.

As we evolve, it is important not to discard past methods just because somethings shiny and new, when existing technology is more than capable of doing the required job for a lot less money. Not to mention the environmental gains of using refurbished technology as opposed to buying new.

This is an area we take seriously, through a number of fit for purpose office technology solutions, based on refurbished technology, which come with lifetime warranties for peace of mind.

They’re environmentally friendly simple solutions, you just pay a fixed monthly fee, and everything is included with no strings attached.

Take laptops as an example…

Perhaps you don’t want to shell out a fortune for every new model and want to be environmentally conscious of waste.

Like how calculation methods are still used today, we refurbish laptops and rent them out with the most up to date office 365 software already installed.

As models progress or breakages happen, we fix and replace the laptops, so you can stay up to date with the most modern technology and software, at a fixed price, without the moral and financial burden of constantly exchanging for newer models.

…and we do the same with print and scan technology too!