Understanding Computers From counting on our fingers, to the high-tech machines of the future that were once only a figment of our imagination but now dominate most of our everyday lives, people and computers have evolved into an ever changing world where the toys of today are the outdated machines of tomorrow. Its hard to think that just a few hundred years back we would all be counting on our fingers and that anything more than that would require more than ten fingers would mean a huge brainstorm was to commence. about 3000 years ago yet another invention was made called the abacus it was the first counting machine that we know of