Computers on stamps is a subject that is only about 30 years old. It was first mentioned as a subject for collecting in a 1971 issue of the American philatelic magazine Topical Time. The article by R.Boos listed 22 computer-related stamps. In February 1973, Datamation, a magazine for the computer industry, published the article “A Gallery of Computer Postal Art” by M.W.Martin which indicated only 23 stamps from 14 different countries related to EDP (Electronic Data Processing). Subsequent letters to the editor that same year mentioned as many as 100 computer related stamps. An article in the November 7, 1973, issue of Computerworld by Lee Kleynhans, mentioned 55 computer-related stamps from 34 countries, and the author asks the question “How about the U.S.?” [see footnote for “How about SA?”]. Since then the list has grown to well over 2000 items from virtually every country in the world.
Although the first computers date back to the late 1940s, computing devices are much older. The oldest apparatus used for computing was the abacus (Venda 1991, Scott 227). The abacus is a device used for numerical calculations and originated in Babylonia in the Middle East (about 3000 BC). Its concept is fairly simple: the right-hand column indicates the ones, the next one indicates the tens, etc. There is a crossbar across all columns, with two beads on the one side and five beads on the other side. The two beads have a value of 5 each, while the five beads have a value of 1 each. To indicate a number, one shifts beads towards the crossbar. The abacus has been widely used in Europe till a few centuries ago, and even today it is still in use in Asian countries.
The Inca’s in Peru developed a different device to keep records. The quipu (Peru 1972, Sc C341) was based on the decimal system and consisted of a stick or cord to which knotted strings of various colors were attached. The knots at the end of the string stood for 1 while those higher up stood for 10, etc.
Other calculating devices are the slide rule, which has been featured on two stamps from Romania (1957, Sc 1159-60) and the adding machine, which was usually powered by a manually operated lever or by electricity. The next development was the calculator. The earliest model was designed by Wilhelm Schickard (1592–1635)
in 1623 and was featured on a German stamp (1973, Sc 1123). This was followed by Blaise Pascal’s (1623–1662) Pascaline in 1642 and by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’ (1646–1716) Stepped Reckoner which was built in the early 1670s. This calculator could extract square roots as well as do additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions.
Both Pascal and Leibniz
have been portrayed on stamps many times, e.g. Pascal on France 1944 (Sc B181)
and Monaco 1973 (Sc 875), Leibniz on Germany 1926 (Sc 360) and 1980 (Sc 1329).
Pascal has been honored by having the programming language Pascal named after him.
Leibniz has made
major contributions towards the ultimate birth of the computer. He proposed the
basis of a language that would allow logical statements to be dealt with
mathematically. Its essence was the use of the digit 0 for False and 1 for True.
From this Leibniz went on to develop binary arithmetic, the basis for
modern-day computing.
Another contributor to the development of the computer was the French weaver Joseph Marie Jacquard (1752–1834) (France 1934, Sc 295) who in 1804 invented a loom in which changes in pattern or material could be programmed by feeding in a set of punched cards. It was the first programmable device, in other words, the first time that a machine could be programmed to do a different task by feeding it a different program, in this case a different set of punched cards. Austria issued a stamp in 1947 (Sc B204) showing the Jacquard loom.
Other contributors worth naming are Babbage, Siemens, Poulsen and Neumann. The English mathematician Charles Babbage (1792-1871) (Great Britain 1991, Sc 1361)
designed a Difference Engine, a
mechanical computer for producing numerical tables. Due to the excessive costs
of manufacturing the thousands of parts required, his machine has never been
built. The German Werner von Siemens (1816-1892) (Germany 1952, Sc 9N90)
founded a telegraph factory in Berlin in 1847, which later became Siemens AG, a
leader in the European computer manufacturing industry today. The Danish
engineer Valdemar Poulsen (1869-1942) (Denmark 1969, Sc 464) registered a
patent in 1898 for a telegraphone, an
electro-magnetic phonograph capable of registering information by alternating
the magnetization of a wire. This concept was later used to design the tape
recorder using a plastic tape coated with magnetic material. The telegraphone
and subsequent tape recorder led to the magnetic tapes and disks used in
computer systems today.
The mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957), who was born in Hungary but later moved to the
United States, is credited with developing the concept of the stored program
whereby instructions and data are both stored in the memory of a computer
(Hungary 1992, Sc 3354).
The first electronic computer was the Eniac (Electronic Number Indicator and Calculator)
which was built in 1946 (Marshall Islands 1998, Sc 679I). It was a very large
computer: 5.5 m high, 24 m long and weighed 30 tons. It used thermionic valves
and vacuum tubes as storage elements. It was a rather unreliable machine and
its working was fairly primitive as reprogramming had to be done by
reconnecting wires, because, at that time, there was no provision for using
software to control a digital computer.
When William Shockley (1910–1989) (Antigua & Barbuda 1998, Sc 2183) invented the
transistor in 1949, the vacuum tubes were replaced by the much smaller and more
reliable transistors and the second generation of computers could be built.
Jack Kilby (1923-) (Marshall Islands 1999, Sc 702o), an electrical engineer by profession, invented the monolithic integrated circuit in 1958 and later the first handheld electronic calculator. His invention would lead to the third generation of computers.
In a separate development, the United States Census Bureau had spent seven years processing its 1880 census. In order to speed up future censuses it held a competition to find better ways of collecting and tallying its census results. Herman Hollerith became the winner with his idea of recording the results in punched cards which could be tabulated by reading them with a machine and sensing the holes electrically. His process was used in the 1890 census and the results took just six weeks to tabulate. Soon his approach was adopted worldwide. When his firm merged in 1911 with two other firms, a new company was formed that would soon become International Business Machines, or IBM. Later IBM acquired the nickname “Big Blue”, as their computers in the 60s and 70s all had a distinct blue color.
Although Hollerith has never been portrayed on a stamp, his punchcard, together with its closely related cousin, the punched paper tape, which had evolved from the telegraphy morse tape, would become the input medium for computers in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Both, punched card and punched paper tape have been shown on stamps many times, e.g. punched card on Netherlands 1968 (Sc 451), Egypt 1969 (Sc 815), punched paper tape on Turkey 1975 (Sc 1997), Denmark 1965 (Sc 420). The featuring of punchcards and paper tapes on stamps happened primarily in the period 1950 – 1980 and was done to project an image of modern technology for the stamp, and thereby for the issuing country.
In the 1970s a new development occurred: the arrival of the mini computer. In the late 60s many bright youngsters, most of them still in their teens, had been tinkering with electronics and were trying to build their own computer. A number of them got together in California and formed the Homebrew Computer Club. Their purpose: to assist each other in building their first mini computer. Amongst its members: Steve Wozniak (1950-) (Palau 1999, Sc 512c), Stephen Jobs (1955-) (Central African Republic 2000), later founders of Apple Computers. In the early 1970s the first mini computers were built and became available commercially: the Apple, Atari, Sinclair, Alto, Commodore, and many others.
Although these mini computers were primarily used for playing computer games (with chess often being the ultimate test: if the machine could play chess, it was deemed to be a computer), the arrival of the spreadsheet program SuperCalc changed that perspective. Its power to do quick tabulations and calculations made the small computers even attractive to big business.
In 1981 the scene changed again, when IBM announced its Personal Computer (PC) and set the de facto standard for PCs. Prior to that, IBM had primarily made its profits from selling hardware (i.e. computers), and therefore they had asked a little start-up company, called Microsoft, to write the operating software (the programs that control the computer) for their new PC. Microsoft complied and developed MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) for the IBM PC. Microsoft’s founder and current Chairman Bill Gates (1955-) has been portrayed on quite a few stamps (Kyrgyzstan 1999, Palau 1999, Sc 512k). It wasn’t much later that IBM realized its mistake but by then Microsoft had established itself and was on its way to become the giant it is today. The PC not only became an essential business tool, it also didn’t take long before people bought one for use at home, be it for work or pleasure.
The 90s saw the growth of the Internet, the Information Super Highway. The Internet, or as it is also called, the World Wide Web, had its founding in the ARPA net (the Advanced Research Projects Agency) and started in 1969 when two computers were linked together and could “talk” to each other. Its original purpose was to link computers together to enable the exchange of information between government departments (especially within the US Ministry of Defense). The network was later expanded to include Universities as well, for the exchange of research information. As more and more organizations climbed onto the Internet bandwagon, the more global the network of computers became. This has also resulted in additional services and facilities being developed specifically for the Internet, like e-mail, electronic shopping, etc. Today the Internet is an essential component of the global village in which we live.
© Wobbe Vegter 2002
References:
1. Computers on Stamps and Stationery, 1998 - Larry Dodson, ATA Handbook 134
2. Update #1 to Computers on Stamps and Stationery, 2001 – Larry Dodson
and Wobbe Vegter
3. Fire in the Valley (2nd edition), 1999 – Paul Freiberger
& Michael Swaine
4. The Universal History of Numbers III: The Computer and the Information
Revolution, 1994 – Georges Ifrah
5. History of Computing, 2001 – Mark Greenia (on CD-ROM)
Footnote: How about South Africa?
The only South African computer-related stamp is the 2000 Millennium stamp, as its design - although barely noticeable – incorporates “images taken from the design of an electronic motherboard”.
[ Published in: The South African Philatelist, February 2002, Vol. 78:1 ]