If taken at its most basic meaning -- a device which aids in the task of computation (calculation) -- the first computer was probably a form of the abacus, a Chinese invention that has been around for thousands of years.
If you mean automated counting machines, those were used in the 1880s to help tabulate the United States census, and were probably in limited use a few years before that.
The first electronic computers, of the like that dominated the mid-20th Century, began appearing at the end of the industrial revolution, coming into noteworthy being between the two World Wars. ENIAC was one of the first major computers used in the Allied War effort in the 1940s.
The modern supercomputer came into being in the 1960s, as did the first true mutli-user systems, which were dumb terminals connected to massive, building-sized time-slice computers.
If you mean computers that could go on your desk, that would be in the early 1970s, with the advent of the minicomputers and eventually the personal computer.
If you mean a computer worth using yourself, that would be around 1977, with the arrival of the Apple //.
If you mean a computer worth having your mom use, that would be in 1984 with the birth of Macintosh.
If you mean a computer worth having that guy down the street you don't like use, that would be in 1985, when the first IBM-compatible (remember when they were called that?) clones shipped with the first version of Windows 1.02.
If you mean the first computer capable of commanding a starship in battle, that will be in 2268 when Richard Daystrom completes the M-5.
From _Computer Architecture Vol 2: A Computer Zoo_, Fred Brooks, Gerrit Blaauw:
"Johann H. Müller's idea for a machine that could calculate and print numerical tables dates back to 1784 through 1786. Charles Babbage designed such a machine in the years 1821 to 1833. Babbage completed only a model of the calculating part of the machine. In 1843 the father and son Georg and Edvard Scheutz completed their first Difference Engine in Stockholm, Sweden. The architecture of the machine was based upon Babbage's ideas. The implementation was their own; the machine was built by Edvard Scheutz at his home from 1837 to 1843. Johan W. Bergström in Stockholm manufactured a copy of the Scheutz machine and completed it in 1852; Bryan Donkin & Co. in London manufactured a third machine and completed it in 1859. We describe the third machine."
"Howard H. Aiken proposed to build the Sequence Controlled Automatic Calculator, later called the Mark I. The machine was put into operation in May 1944; it was dedicated on August 7, 1944."
"Although the first model of the Zuse Z4 was completed in 1945, the machine had to be rebuilt because of direct and indirect damage from World War II. The rebuild Z4 was installed in 1950 at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich, where it remained operational until 1955. Later, it was installed at Dr. H. Schardin's Research Laboratory in nearby St. Louis, France. The Z1 (1936) was an experimental mechanical calculator with a mechanical memory. The Z2 (1939), a test model, combined the mechanical memory with an arithmetic unit of relays. The Z3 (1941), also an experimental prototype, used a relay memory and arithmetic unit, a photographic film sequence tape, and floating-point arithmetic (only 14-bit coefficient). It was the first program-controlled processor. The Z4 is a direct descendent of the Z3; it differs by a larger set of instructions and by a word size of 32 bits, as opposed to the 22 bits of the Z3. Of crucial difference are the conditional operations later incorporated in the Z4 at the suggestion of A. Speiser."
So it looks like the first electronic programmable computer was the Z3, 1941, Germany, under Konrad Zuse.
Other noteworthy items:
Ferranti Mark 1 (Manchester MU1): designed 1946-49, built 1951.
Univac I: March 1951
And the 1890 census machine you were thinking of was the Hollerith Tabulator.
If you mean the first computer capable of commanding a starship in battle, that will be in 2268 when Richard Daystrom completes the M-5.
Oh come on! That's just blatantly wrong! Everyone knows that the M-5 went schizo and had to be destroyed because Daystrom used his own engrams for programming the thing... jeez mon!
Von Neumann invented the concept of the 'stored program computer' in the 1940s with the EDVAC report. This was the birth of the 'modern' vision of the computer
I heard from my old school that the first electronic stored-program computer was invented by an ex pupil at Manchester Uni (linkage). Take it how you will - the school tended to play up things that made them look good
Oh come on! That's just blatantly wrong! Everyone knows that the M-5 went schizo and had to be destroyed because Daystrom used his own engrams for programming the thing... jeez mon!
Well, yes. But it did win the battle. Showed all those troops in those unarmed Starfleet vessels who was the boss!
the commmon Potato sorter which consisted of different sized holes where the big ones would fall into the big holes after all the small ones had fallen through smaller holes
invented in the theoretical sense might mean credit goes to Alan Turing
That's what I'd always heard.
And Von Neumann was the father of the "digital" concept, or maybe the basis of IRQs. Got that article on the shelf here someplace (book chapter I think).
And Von Neumann was the father of the "digital" concept, or maybe the basis of IRQs. Got that article on the shelf here someplace (book chapter I think).
Office of John Norair
H218 Von Neumann Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Even though I'm a bit biased, many computers today, particularly MCU's and DSP's, do not use the Von Neumann (aka the Princeton) architecture. The Harvard architecture came first I think, and, also like the university, for most things it's inferior.
But I'm going to have to go with Colossus. It was, as far as I know, progammable, and Turing did eventually become a Princeton man, so he's OK. (even though he had some weird sexual identity things going on).
Comments
If taken at its most basic meaning -- a device which aids in the task of computation (calculation) -- the first computer was probably a form of the abacus, a Chinese invention that has been around for thousands of years.
If you mean automated counting machines, those were used in the 1880s to help tabulate the United States census, and were probably in limited use a few years before that.
The first electronic computers, of the like that dominated the mid-20th Century, began appearing at the end of the industrial revolution, coming into noteworthy being between the two World Wars. ENIAC was one of the first major computers used in the Allied War effort in the 1940s.
The modern supercomputer came into being in the 1960s, as did the first true mutli-user systems, which were dumb terminals connected to massive, building-sized time-slice computers.
If you mean computers that could go on your desk, that would be in the early 1970s, with the advent of the minicomputers and eventually the personal computer.
If you mean a computer worth using yourself, that would be around 1977, with the arrival of the Apple //.
If you mean a computer worth having your mom use, that would be in 1984 with the birth of Macintosh.
If you mean a computer worth having that guy down the street you don't like use, that would be in 1985, when the first IBM-compatible (remember when they were called that?) clones shipped with the first version of Windows 1.02.
If you mean the first computer capable of commanding a starship in battle, that will be in 2268 when Richard Daystrom completes the M-5.
So again, it depends on what you're asking. ;-)
Charles Babbage's Difference Engine might count.
"Johann H. Müller's idea for a machine that could calculate and print numerical tables dates back to 1784 through 1786. Charles Babbage designed such a machine in the years 1821 to 1833. Babbage completed only a model of the calculating part of the machine. In 1843 the father and son Georg and Edvard Scheutz completed their first Difference Engine in Stockholm, Sweden. The architecture of the machine was based upon Babbage's ideas. The implementation was their own; the machine was built by Edvard Scheutz at his home from 1837 to 1843. Johan W. Bergström in Stockholm manufactured a copy of the Scheutz machine and completed it in 1852; Bryan Donkin & Co. in London manufactured a third machine and completed it in 1859. We describe the third machine."
"Howard H. Aiken proposed to build the Sequence Controlled Automatic Calculator, later called the Mark I. The machine was put into operation in May 1944; it was dedicated on August 7, 1944."
"Although the first model of the Zuse Z4 was completed in 1945, the machine had to be rebuilt because of direct and indirect damage from World War II. The rebuild Z4 was installed in 1950 at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zürich, where it remained operational until 1955. Later, it was installed at Dr. H. Schardin's Research Laboratory in nearby St. Louis, France. The Z1 (1936) was an experimental mechanical calculator with a mechanical memory. The Z2 (1939), a test model, combined the mechanical memory with an arithmetic unit of relays. The Z3 (1941), also an experimental prototype, used a relay memory and arithmetic unit, a photographic film sequence tape, and floating-point arithmetic (only 14-bit coefficient). It was the first program-controlled processor. The Z4 is a direct descendent of the Z3; it differs by a larger set of instructions and by a word size of 32 bits, as opposed to the 22 bits of the Z3. Of crucial difference are the conditional operations later incorporated in the Z4 at the suggestion of A. Speiser."
So it looks like the first electronic programmable computer was the Z3, 1941, Germany, under Konrad Zuse.
Other noteworthy items:
Ferranti Mark 1 (Manchester MU1): designed 1946-49, built 1951.
Univac I: March 1951
And the 1890 census machine you were thinking of was the Hollerith Tabulator.
Originally posted by Kirkland
If you mean the first computer capable of commanding a starship in battle, that will be in 2268 when Richard Daystrom completes the M-5.
Oh come on! That's just blatantly wrong! Everyone knows that the M-5 went schizo and had to be destroyed because Daystrom used his own engrams for programming the thing... jeez mon!
Originally posted by segovius
Greece: Antikythera mechanism.
Dammm it Sedge was it that bloody obvious ?.
Smarty pants........Grrrrrrrrr
Amorya
then the Brits declassified Colossus which had been used for codebreaking at Bletchley Park
this page cites Colossus as the "first programmable computer"
invented in the theoretical sense might mean credit goes to Alan Turing
Originally posted by Kickaha
Oh come on! That's just blatantly wrong! Everyone knows that the M-5 went schizo and had to be destroyed because Daystrom used his own engrams for programming the thing... jeez mon!
Well, yes. But it did win the battle. Showed all those troops in those unarmed Starfleet vessels who was the boss!
circa 5000bc?!?
Originally posted by curiousuburb
invented in the theoretical sense might mean credit goes to Alan Turing
That's what I'd always heard.
And Von Neumann was the father of the "digital" concept, or maybe the basis of IRQs. Got that article on the shelf here someplace (book chapter I think).
Originally posted by finboy
That's what I'd always heard.
And Von Neumann was the father of the "digital" concept, or maybe the basis of IRQs. Got that article on the shelf here someplace (book chapter I think).
Office of John Norair
H218 Von Neumann Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544
Even though I'm a bit biased, many computers today, particularly MCU's and DSP's, do not use the Von Neumann (aka the Princeton) architecture. The Harvard architecture came first I think, and, also like the university, for most things it's inferior.
But I'm going to have to go with Colossus. It was, as far as I know, progammable, and Turing did eventually become a Princeton man, so he's OK. (even though he had some weird sexual identity things going on).
Send me mail here and die.
by Neal Stephenson?
its good . . . apparently a Waterhouse invented the first computer
Originally posted by pfflam
Anybody read Cryptonomicon?
by Neal Stephenson?
its good . . . apparently a Waterhouse invented the first computer
try "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
Amazon linkage Review with links
set in a world where the Babbage Engine worked. Steam powered Computing.