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Charles Babbage
To Charles Babbage, a computer was a machine that could create tables and perform calculations and compute more accurately instead of by hand. Babbage worked to build the first model of a difference engine, and then changed course to create a more general all purpose analytical engine. Babbage was never fully successful in his attempts, but his ideas survived and proved to be the forerunner for modern computers. -
Ada Lovelace
Modern computers did not yet exist, but Lovelace conversed with Babbage over his plans for analytical engines. She realized that the computer could follow a series of simple instructions, a program, to perform a complex calculation. Lovelace then created the first ever computer program or algorithm. The Ada computing language is named after her. -
Alan Turing
A computer in this time was a practical universal computing machine. Alan Turing basically invented the modern computer, playing a major role in the Allied victory in WWII. Turing published a paper that became the foundation for computer programming
Using an algorithm given a set of axioms, Turing machines could decide if a statement is true or false, and were machines that could calculate any computable number. -
Mauchly and Eckert
Mauchly and Eckert created the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), the world's first large-scale general purpose electronic computer. Consisted of vacuum tubes and flip-flops. This was an extremely large computing machine around the size of a large room. Originally intended to predict the weather, but transitioned to military ballistics. -
ENIAC Progammers
ENIACs were buggy, clunky and large predecessors to current computers. A group of 6 women were tasked with programming these machines, analyzing differential equations, determining how to patch the cables to connect to the correct electronic circuits, and setting the thousands of 10-way switches. These women physically hand-wired the machine, using switches, cables, and digit trays to route data and program pulses, as well as developing concepts like subroutines and nesting. -
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper helped improve the process of programming on some of the first modern computers. She developed advanced software programs and tools to make programming computers easier. Hopper developed “A-0”—often considered the first compiler—a program to help write other programs. She was also involved in the development of the COBOL programming language which is still in use today by many large corporations. -
Mark Dean
Mark Dean holds the largest, most groundbreaking personal computer patents including the first color PC monitor and the first gigahertz chip. This chip is able to do a
billion calculations a second He developed the new Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) systems bus, a new system that allowed peripheral devices like disk drives, printers and monitors to be plugged directly into computers. Mark Dean transformed the modern computer to a more colorful and even more powerful version of itself.
