Varios científicos coinciden: hace 600 años, el imperio inca inventó el primer sistema informático de la historia de la humanidad
Los resultados de una investigación abren el debate sobre el origen del software moderno .
"El avance de la tecnología ha hecho que, a día de hoy, tengamos a nuestro alcance unos dispositivos modernos capaces de lograr cosas que hace años parecían imposibles. Sin embargo, las civilizaciones antiguas también contaban con aparatos y sistemas que bien podrían ser los antenados de los nuestros.
Según los resultados de una investigación, publicados en la revista Computer and Information Science, el imperio inca podría haber inventado el primer sistema informático de la historia de la humanidad. Se trata del ‘quipu’, un dispositivo compuesto por cuerdas anudadas de distinta dirección y color. Y servía para codificar información, registrar datos, impuestos, etc.
Eso sí, a pesar de los análisis llevados a cabo por los investigadores, el significado de la información que recopilaban es difícil de conocer. Sin embargo, el verdadero objetivo del estudio no es descifrar el contenido de un ‘quipu’, sino tratar de entender qué relación puede haber entre el mencionado dispositivo y el desarrollo del software moderno.
Los investigadores sugieren que el ‘quipu’ del imperio inca funcionaba como el primer sistema informático del mundo, capaz de gestionar datos complejos mediante nudos, colores y giros en las cuerdas. Richard Dosselmann, informático de la First Nations University of Canada y principal autor del estudio, junto con Edward Doolittle y Vatika Tayal, trataron de explicar la relación que existiría entre el ‘quipu’ y un software moderno.
Las cuerdas de un ‘quipu’, que se ramifican hasta crear una estructura arbórea, podían servir para organizar datos como las carpetas de un ordenador. Y su forma de gestionar la información se pudo haber traducido a código escrito en C++ y Phyton.
Para demostrar que no era solo algo teórico, el equipo de Dosselmann creó tres aplicaciones funcionales basadas en datos de un ‘quipu’: una hoja de cálculo, un sistema de archivos y una herramienta de representación de imágenes. Sus análisis demostraron que la naturaleza no ordenada de la estructura permite una inserción rápida comparable a la de los arreglos y las listas enlazadas.
Su hallazgo redefine a los incas como pioneros en computación física, con sistemas que ejecutaban funciones similares a hojas de cálculo y almacenamiento de archivos."
Varios científicos coinciden: hace 600 años, el imperio inca inventó el primer sistema informático de la historia de la humanidad
Los resultados de una investigación abren el debate sobre el origen del software moderno
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The Inca May Have Invented the World’s First Computer System—600 Years Ago
Scientists used the quipu’s data to build working spreadsheets, file systems, and encryption tools, rivaling conventional computing methods."The Inca never built a world of silicon chips or copper-wired circuits, and the high-speed hardware of modern times was something they simply didn’t possess. Despite being a powerful civilization that rose to power from the Peruvian highlands, they never dreamed of smartphones, laptops, or other gadgets, and they hadn’t even developed a system of writing.
What they did have was the quipu—a surprisingly sophisticated system of cords and knots used to keep numerical records, and possibly much more. Scholars have debated for decades what quipus actually encode. One leading theory, championed by mathematicians Marcia and Robert Ascher, holds that the knots represent a decimal number system, with each knot corresponding to a digit. But that’s just the beginning. Other researchers have proposed that quipus tracked census data, taxes, and inventories. Some think they doubled as calendars, mapping astronomical cycles. And a tantalizing 2017 study by Sabine Hyland identified what could be the makings of a full logosyllabic language—roughly 95 symbols functioning much like ancient Mayan or Egyptian writing, in which symbols doubled as sounds. The color of each cord, the direction of each knot, even the way cords are bundled all may carry meaning we haven’t yet cracked.
Now, one research team thinks the quipu’s secrets can teach modern computers a thing or two.
Richard Dosselmann, a computer scientist at First Nations University of Canada in Regina, looked at the quipu and saw something no one had quite articulated before: a sophisticated data structure. It’s the kind of organized framework that underpins every spreadsheet, database, and file system on your laptop. Dosselmann and his co-authors, Edward Doolittle and Vatika Tayal, didn’t try to decipher what historical quipus say. Instead, they asked a different question: can the way a quipu organizes information actually work as modern software?
The answer, published recently in Computer and Information Science, is a resounding yes.
Here’s why. A quipu is naturally hierarchical. Pendant cords branch off a main cord, and subsidiary cords branch off those, forming a tree-like structure. Think of it as an analog version of folders nested inside folders on your desktop. The cords are also grouped, bundling related items together the way a census might cluster families within communities within regions. And each group can include a “top cord” that automatically tallies the knots below it, keeping a built-in running sum that would make any accountant jealous. On top of all that, the arrangement is partially unsorted: knots on a cord follow place value, but cords themselves can appear in any order, which makes inserting new data blazingly fast.
Dosselmann’s team translated every one of these properties—hierarchy, grouping, summing, colour (stored as an RGBA value), and knot direction (a simple true/false)—into code written in C++ and Python. They even created a brand-new file format, .qpu, that looks nothing like a conventional .csv or text file. Every quipu file uses that single extension regardless of what it contains. Inside, each row is pipe-delimited (the | was chosen because it looks like a cord) and carries four components: whether the entry is a cord or a group, its color, its direction, and its knots. Indentation indicates depth in the hierarchy—something flat files simply can’t do.
To prove the concept wasn’t just theoretical, the team built three working applications: a spreadsheet, a file system, and an image-representation tool, all powered by quipu data. Performance experiments showed the structure’s unsorted nature enables fast insertion rivaling arrays and linked lists, and when data is arranged hierarchically, it approaches the speed of balanced trees and hash tables. It scales linearly, too.
“A quipu has the ability to simulate many of the existing data structures,” Dosselmann wrote. “It also boasts features not usually found elsewhere. The concept of an internal sum, along with cord colour and knot direction, is perhaps unique to the quipu.”
The Inca May Have Invented the World’s First Computer System—600 Years Ago
Scientists used the quipu’s data to build working spreadsheets, file systems, and encryption tools, rivaling conventional computing methods.
