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Complex Number Calculator created
George Stibitz uses this machine, created in 1939, to make calculations remotely in 1940 located in New York City. He used a teletype machine connected by special phone lines. This is the first known example of remote access computing -
Curta Calculator designed
Curt Herzstark refines his designs for what remains the worlds smallest all mechanical, 4 function calculator ever made. Incredibly he did this while imprisoned at Buchenwald after being arrested by the Nazis in 1943, displaying his talent and fortitude as an engineer. -
First Colossus operational at Bletchley Park
Designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers this computer was instrumental in reducing the time required to decipher coded Nazi messages, reducing time to do so from days to hours. This machine is credited with shortening the war. The machine was very large, using as many as 2500 vacuum tubes and reels of punch tape. -
First Computer Bug found
Grace Hopper finds what she calls the first case of a computer bug being found in the form of a dead moth stuck in the gears of a Mark 2 computer located at Harvard. Brilliant and humorous she later helped developed COBOL, one of the first widespread computer languages. -
First Computer program to Run on a computer
Researchers Frederic Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Toothill develop the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM). The machine was built to test the Williams Tube, the first high-speed electronic random access memory for computers. Their first program was 17 instructions and constituted the first program in history to run on a digital, electronic, stored-program computer. A contradiction by todays standards, the machine was nicknamed the Manchester Baby.
