Perhaps history should be taught backwards

A recent trip to the local computer museum (a decent place with mechanical computation equipment, various microcomputers and PCs, a DEC PDP-8/m and PDP-12, and a Univac 460) gave me time to think about our techniques for teaching history.

The curator gave us a tour, and he started with the oldest computing devices in his collection. Those devices included abaci, Napier's Bones, a slide rule, and electro-mechanical calculators. We then progressed forward in time, looking at the Univac and punch cards, the PDP-8 and PDP-12 and Teletype terminals, then the Apple II and Radio Shack TRS-80 microcomputers, and ended with modern-day PCs and tablets.

The tour was a nice, orderly progression through time,

And perhaps the wrong sequence.

A number of our group were members of the younger set. They had worked with smart phones and iPads and PCs, but nothing earlier than that. I suspect that for them, the early parts of the tour -- the early computation technologies -- were difficult.

Computing technologies have changed over time. Even the concept of computing has changed. Early devices (abaci, slide rules, and even hand-held calculators) were used to perform mathematical operations; the person knew the theory and overall purpose of the computations.

Today, we use computing devices for many purposes, and the underlying computations are distant (and hidden) from the user. Our purposes are not merely word processing and spreadsheets, but web pages, Twitter feeds, and games. (And blog posts.)

The technologies we use to calculate are different: today's integrated circuits do the work of 1960's large discrete electronics, which do the work of lots of wheels and cogs of a mechanical calculator. Even storage has changed: today's flash RAM holds data; in the 1970s it was core memory; in the 1950s it was mercury delay lines.

The changes in technology were mostly gradual with a few large jumps. Yet the technologies of today are sufficiently different from the early technologies that one is not recognizable from the other. Moving from today to the beginning requires a big jump in understanding.

Which is why I question the sequence of history. For computing technology, starting at the beginning requires a good understanding of the existing technology and techniques, and even then it is hard to see how an abacus or slide rule relates to today's smart phone.

Perhaps we should move in the reverse direction. Perhaps we should start with today's technology, on the assumption that people know about it, and work backwards. We can move to slightly older systems and compare them to today's technology. Then repeat the process, moving back into the past.

For example, storage. Showing someone a punch card, for example, means very little (unless they know the history). But leading that same person through technology (SD RAM chips, USB memory sticks, CD-ROMs, floppy disks, early floppy disks, magnetic drums, magnetic tape, paper tape, and eventually punch cards) might give that person an easier time. For someone who does not know the tech, studying something close to current technology (CD-ROMs) and then learning about the previous tech (floppy disks) might be better. It avoids the big leap into the past.