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The world's earliest digital computer, the Z3 machine, is completed
The Z3 was completed in 1941, and it was designed by German Engineer Konrad Zuse in 1935. This electromechanical computer performed arithmetic calculations and was faster than the Z1 and Z2. The Z3 enhanced our lives by way of the aviation field. It was used to calculate aerodynamics in aircraft design, Unfortunately it was destroyed in a bombing raid in Berlin. "It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer" according to The New York Times. -
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was designed
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was designed by John Vincent Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry. This was the first special-purpose electronic digital computer built in the U.S.A. It performed arithmetic calculations like the Z3 as well as punched cards as input/output units. It enhanced our lives because it performed linear equations which became useful for society because it could solve many simultaneous equations which were difficult before that time. -
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) was designed and built
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) was designed and built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It was the world's first general-purpose computer. Its construction was financed by the United States Army and one of its first jobs was to calculate artillery firing tables, but its overall characteristic is that it was the first large-scale to run at electronic speed. It enhanced our lives because it laid the foundations for modern computers. -
Funding received to build the UNIVAC
The UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was built by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. They received funding in 1946 to build it from the Census Bureau after they left University of Pennsylvania over a patent dispute. It is the first commercial computer for business and government applications. It enhanced our lives because it replaced the punched-card accounting machines of the day. -
The transistor was invented
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of Bell Laboratories invented the transistor in 1947. They shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for it. The transistor enhanced lives because it replaced the unreliable vacuum tubes. Transistors were semiconductor devices that can amplify or switch electrical signals.