So we ended last episode at the start of the 20th century with special purpose computing devices such as Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machines. But as the scale of human civilization continued to grow as did the demand for more sophisticated and powerful devices. Soon these cabinet-sized electro-mechanical computers would grow into room-sized behemoths that were prone to errors. But is was these computers that would help usher in a new era of computation - electronic computing.

上一集我们讲到在20世纪初，使用了特殊用途的计算设备，比如赫尔曼·霍勒瑞斯的“表格机”。但随着人类文明规模的不断扩大，对更先进、更强大设备的需求也在不断增长。很快，这些柜子大小的机电计算机将成长为房间大小的庞然大物。虽然有时候会出错，但是这些大型计算机将有助于开创一个新的计算时代——电子计算。