Electronics > Microcontrollers

Etymology of the word register

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TimFox:

--- Quote from: Doctorandus_P on February 03, 2023, 12:48:34 am ---Another thing:

In the old days, "computer" was a job title. At some times those jobs got pushed out of the market by some kind of machine.

--- End quote ---

Richard Feynman's job at the Manhattan Project was running the "computers", most of whom were non-commissioned officers, typically corporals.
They were organized into gangs of calculation, using mechanical desk calculators, to compute what would now be done in "computers".

brucehoult:

--- Quote from: amyk on February 03, 2023, 03:04:23 am ---
--- Quote from: brucehoult on February 02, 2023, 04:18:23 am ---
--- Quote from: slugrustle on February 02, 2023, 02:48:03 am ---Does anyone know the etymology for the word "register" as used in microcontrollers?  Where does it come from, historically?

--- End quote ---

If you're content to go back only a few hundred years, Babbage used the term in his difference engine around 1820, as did people making simple adding machines in the early 1600s.

No doubt they got it from accountants.

--- End quote ---
...and only slightly more recently than that, the cash register.

--- End quote ---

I actually checked that. Surprisingly, cash registers seem to start from around 1890, more thnn 250 years after those early 1600s adding machines (and half a century after Babbage), NOT before them.

cantata.tech:

--- Quote from: amyk on February 03, 2023, 03:04:23 am ---The word "accumulator" also has similar roots.

--- End quote ---

Not that I can see, it uses a different root particle.

"Accumulator" uses the root particle "sum" as c and s are interchangeable so that Accumulator can also be pronounced as "A+sum+ulator".

"Sum" makes contextual sense.

Sum means a) "A central idea or point"
                  b) The utmost degree (or utmost register)
                  c) An arithmetic computation

These root particle meanings are older than the Roman Empire or the Latin language, although it will be claimed by 'some' [a countable quantity] that these words are all Latin derived.

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