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The Colossus
The Colossus was an electronic digital computer, built during World War 2 by Tommy Flowers. It was developed and built before the ENIAC, so this would be considered the world's first computer. The Colossus was used to solve secret codes and had over 1700 valves. -
The ENIAC
The ENIAC machine was known as one of the world’s first electronic general-use computer. ENIAC is short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. It was able to perform many arithmetic calculations through reprogramming, as suggested by the name. The ENIAC machine weighed 30 tons and had 18,000 vacuum tubes, 10,000 capacitors, 6,000 switches and 1,500 relays. Eventually, the machine was immobilized by lightning and could not be used. -
The UNIVAC
The UNIVAC I was the first general purpose electronic digital computer design. It was designed by the same inventors as the ENIAC: J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. The UNIVAC was designed at the outset for business and administrative use with fast execution of relatively simple arithmetic and data transport operations. It used thousands of vacuum tubes for computation. Like the ENIAC, the UNIVAC was too large and heavy to bring around. -
IBM 704
The IBM 704 Data Processing System was a large-scale computer designed for engineering and scientific calculations. It had sister computers, which included the IBm 705 and 702. One of the IBM 704’s designers was John Backus. The IBM 704 was very large and could not be carried around. -
Bendix G-15
The Bendix G-15 was a serial-architecture machine, which used magnetic drums as its main memory.It was about 5 by 3 by 3 ft and weighed about 438 kg, meaning it was not portable; but this was significantly lighter than the ENIAC. The base system, without peripherals, cost $49,500. The G-15 had a typewriter installed in it. The G-15 has 180 vacuum tube packs in it. -
The BRLESC
The name BRLESC is an acronym for Ballistic Research Laboratories Electronic Scientific Computer. It was, as its name suggest, designed primarily for scientific and military tasks. It could do five million operations per second and had 4096 72-bit words of memory, the equivalent of 36 kilobyte. -
IBM 5100 (SCAMP)
In 1975, IBM developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP. SCAMP was considered a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer.” The price ranged from $8,975 to $19,975. The IBM 5100 was a more developed and evolved version of the SCAMP. It was the size of a small suitcase and had 64 KiB of RAM. -
Apple I
The Apple I was a computer that was built and developed by Steve Wozniak. A unit was sold in September 2009 for $17,480 on eBay. The Apple I was a desktop computer and had a tiny 4KB memory and 1MHz processor. Nowadays, Apple is a very successful company. -
The Amiga 2000
The Amiga 2000 was created in 1987. It was an improved version of the Amiga 1000 and it allowed expansion cards to be added internally. It was able to play videos and had a speaker built in. The Amiga 2000 was also able to display in colour and had a 256 or 512 KB Kickstart ROM.
