Computers History

When Was The First Computer Invented?

2700 BCE

When Was The First Computer Invented?
The history of computers goes back thousands of years with the first one being the abacus. In fact, the earliest abacus, referred to as the Sumerian abacus, dates back to roughly 2700 B.C. from the Mesopotamia region. However, Charles Babbage, the English mathematician and inventor is known as the “Father of Computers.” He created a steam-powered computer known as the Analytical Engine in 1837 which kickstarted computer history.

What is a Computer

2700 BCE

What Is A Computer?
A computer is simply a machine that follows a set of instructions in order to execute sequences of logical or arithmetic functions. However, when we think of modern computers, we don’t see them as just calculators performing functions. Yet, that’s exactly what they are at their core.

The First Analog Computer

200 BCE

The First Analog Computer
200 B.C: The first analog computer, the Antikythera mechanism, is created. The Antikythera mechanism was found off the coast of the Greek island of Kythira from which the computer received its name. This find actually baffled most scientists because a computer this advanced wasn’t supposed to exist this long ago. This mechanical analog computer was used by ancient sailors to determine their position in the sea, based on their astrological position.

Binary Number System

1703

Binary Number System
1703: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed the binary number system which is at the heart of modern computing. The binary number system is a way to convert a series of 0’s and 1’s into other numbers, letters, and characters. Everything we see on screen and interact with on our computers is converted into binary before the computer can process it. The magic of present-day computers is that they process binary extremely quickly.

First Programmable Loom

1801

First Programmable Loom
1801: Joseph Jacquard creates a punch-card programmable loom which greatly simplified the weaving process. This allowed for those with fewer skills to weave more complicated patterns. However, many didn’t like the idea of simplifying and automating the process as it would displace weaving jobs at the time. Yet, technology persisted and the textile industry would eventually change for the better because of it.

First Steam-Driven Computer

1837

First Steam-Driven Computer
1837: Charles Babbage designed the groundbreaking Analytical Engine. The analytical engine was the first major step toward modern computers. Although it was never actually built, its design embodied the major characteristics of modern computers. This included memory, a central processing unit, and the ability for input and output. Charles Babbage is commonly referred to as the “Father of Computers” for his work.

First Computer Algorithm

1843

First Computer Algorithm
1843: Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, worked alongside Charles Babbage to design the analytical engine. However, shortly afterward, she developed the first-ever computer algorithm. She carefully considered what computers were capable of when developing her algorithm. The result was a solution to Bernoulli numbers, a significant mathematical advancement.

First U.S. Census Calculator

1890

First U.S. Census Calculator
1890: Herman Hollerith created a tabulating machine to help calculate the U.S. census. The previous decade’s census took eight years to calculate but with the help of Hollerith’s tabulating machine, it took only six years. With the success of his tabulator, Hollerith then began his own company, the Hollerith Electrical Tabulating System. He applied this same technology to the areas of accounting and inventory.

The Turing Machine

1936

The Turing Machine
1936: Alan Turing invented the Turing Machine and pushed the limits of what a computer could do at the time. A Turing Machine consists of a tape divided by squares that can contain a single digit, often binary digits, or nothing at all. It also consisted of a machine that could read each digit on the tape and change it.

The Complex Number Calculator

1940

The Complex Number Calculator
1940: George Stibitz created the Complex Number Calculator for Bell Labs. It consisted of relays that could recognize the difference between ‘0’ and ‘1’ and therefore, could use binary as the base number system. The final version of the Complex Number Calculator used more than 400 relays and took about two years to create.

First Automatic Computer

1941

First Automatic Computer
1941: Konrad Zuse, a German Computer Scientist, invented the Z3 computer. Zuse’s Z3 was the first programmable fully automatic computer in history. It was much larger than the Complex number calculator and contained more than 2,500 relays. Since the Z3 computer didn’t demonstrate any advantage to the Germans during world war II, the government didn’t provide any funding for it and it was eventually destroyed in the war.

First Electrical Digital Computer

1942

First Electric Digital Computer
1942: Professor John Vincent Atanasoff invented the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). The ABC was the first automatic electric digital computer in history. It contained over 300 vacuum tubes and solved linear equations but it was not programmable or Turing complete. However, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer will forever hold a place in Computer history.

First Programmable Electronic Digital Computer

1944

First Programmable Electronic Digital Computer
1944: British engineer Tommy Flowers and assistants completed the code-breaking Colossus which assisted in decrypting German messages during world war II. It’s held as the first programmable electronic digital computer in history. The Colossus contained more than 1,600 vacuum tubes and thermionic valves in the prototype and 2,400 in the second version, the Mark 2 Colossus.

First General-Purpose Digital Computer

1945

First General-Purpose Digital Computer
1945: ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) is completed by professors John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. ENIAC was absolutely massive, consisting of more than 17,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, filling a 30′ x 50′ room and weighing around 60,000 pounds.

First Computer Transistor

1947

First Computer Transistor
1947: William Shockley of Bell Labs invented the first transistor and drastically changed the course of computing history. The transistor replaced the common vacuum tube which allowed for computers to be much more efficient while still greatly reducing their size and energy requirements.

First General-Purpose Commercial Computer

1951

First General-Purpose Commercial Computer
1951: Professors John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert built UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), the first general-purpose commercial computer in history. The early UNIVAC models utilized 5,000 vacuum tubes but later models in the series adopted transistors. It was a massive computer weighing in at around 16,000 pounds. However, the massive size allowed for more than 1,000 computations per second.

First Computer Programming Language

1954

First Computer Programming Language
1954: A team at IBM led by John Backus created the first commercially available general purpose computer programming language, FORTRAN. FORTRAN stands for Formula Translation and is still used today. When the language first appeared, however, there were bugs and inefficiencies which led people to speculate on the commercial usability of FORTRAN. Yet, the bugs were worked out many of the programming languages that came after were inspired by FORTRAN.

First Computer Operating System

1956

First Computer Operating System
1956: The first computer operating system in history was released in 1956 and produced by General Motors, called the GM-NAA I/O. It was created by Robert L. Patrick and allowed for direct input and output, hence the name. It also allowed for batch processing: the ability to execute a new program automatically after the current one finishes.

First INtegrated Circuit

1958

First Integrated Circuit
1958: Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce create the first integrated circuit, commonly known as a microchip. An integrated circuit consists of electronic circuits mounted onto a semiconductor. The most common semiconductor medium is silicon, which is where the name ‘Silicon Valley‘ comes from. If not for the integrated circuit, computers would still be the size of a refrigerator, rather than the size of a credit card.

First Computer Mouse

1964

First Computer Mouse
1964: Douglas Engelbart invented the first computer mouse in history but it wouldn’t accompany the first Apple Macintosh until 1984. The computer mouse allowed for additional control of the computer in conjunction with the keyboard. These two input devices have been the primary source of user input ever since. However, voice commands from present day smart devices are increasingly becoming the norm.

First SuperComputer

1964

First Supercomputer
1964: History’s first supercomputer, known as the CDC 6600, was developed by Control Data Corp. It consisted of 400,000 transistors, 100 miles of wiring, and used Freon for internal cooling. Thus, the CDC 6600 was able to reach a processing speed of up to 3 million floating-point operations per second (3 megaFLOPS). Amazingly, this supercomputer was ten times faster than the fastest computer at the time and cost a whopping $8 million.

First Wide Area Computer Network

1969

First Wide Area Computer Network
1969: DARPA created the first Wide Area Network in the history of computers called ARPAnet which was a precursor to the internet. It allowed for computers to connect to a central hub and interact in nearly real-time. The term “internet” wouldn’t come around until 1973 when computers in Norway and England connect to ARPAnet. Although the internet has continued to advance through the decades, many of the same protocols from ARPAnet are still standards today.

First Personal Computer

1971

First Personal Computer
1971: The first personal computer in history, the Kenbak-1, is created by John Blankenbaker, and sold for only $750. However, only around 40 of these computers ever sold. As small as it was, it was able to execute hundreds of calculations in a single second. Blankenbaker had the idea for the personal computer more than two decades before completing his first one.

First Computer Microprocessor

1971

First Computer Microprocessor
1971: Intel releases the first microprocessor in the history of computers, the Intel 4004. This tiny microprocessor had the same computing power as the ENIAC computer that was the sizeza an entire room. Even by todays standards, the Intel 4004 is a small microprocessor, housed on a 2-inch wafer opposed to todays 12-inch wafers.

First Apple Computer

1976

First Apple Computer
1976: Apple takes the stage and releases their first computer: the Apple-1. The Apple-1 was different from other computer at the time. It came fully assembled and on a single motherboard. It sold for nearly $700 and had only 4 KB of memory, which is almost laughable compared to today’s standards. However, that was plenty of memory for the applications at the time.

Source

2022

https://compscicentral.com/history-of-computers/