Who Really Invented The Computer?

By Author: Jorge Reis
Total Articles: 4717
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Very few people live in the world today that doesn’t use a computer. I am writing this on a computer. Chances are you are reading this on a computer. Computers are in everything today. Everything has changes as computers have developed and grown. You have to wonder if the people who invented the computer had any idea of the impact it would have. Here is some interesting information the fist computers. Many people invented the computer.
A computer can be defined as a machine that manipulates date based on a set of instructions.
* Analog computer uses continuous physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved.
> The first programmable analog computer was invented by Al-Jazari in 1206
- It was the castle clock, an astronomical clock
- The length of day and night could be re-programmed
- Every hour automatic doors opened
- Five robotic musicians played music
- The clock displayed the zodiac
- It also showed the solar and lunar orbits
> Joseph Marie Jacquard created a programmable textile ...
... loom or analog computer in 1801
- It used punched paper cards as a template
- The cards let the loom automatically weave the programmed patterns
> Charles Babbage did come up with the idea for the first computer
- He conceive the idea of an analytical engine
- He designed a programmable mechanical computer
- The device was never completed due to lack of funds
> Herman Hollerith created three things that created the modern industry of information processing or automated data processing
- He created the use of punch cards to record data as a machine readable medium in 1880
- He also invented the tabulator and key punch machines
- Herman Hollerith’s company became the core of IBM
* Digital Computer
> George Stibitz is recognized as the father of the modern digital computer
- In 1937 he created a relay-based calculator.
- It was the first use of binary circuits to perform arithmetic operations
> Konrad Zuse invented the computer - the electomechanical Z machines
- Z3 created in 1941 was the first binary arithmetic machine
- It had floating point arithmetic
- It was somewhat programmable
- In 1998 it was considered the first operational digital computer as it was Turing complete
> 1941 saw the invention of the non-programmable Atanosoff-Berry computer
- Used vacuum tube based computation
- Binary numbers
- Had a regenerative capacitor memory
> 1943 it was the British Colossus computers
- Limited programmability
- Proved using thousands of tubes was reliable
- Also demonstrated the tubs were electronically reprogrammable
- Was used to break German codes
> 1944 a electromechnical computer was created called the Harvard Mark I
- It was large scale
- Limited programmability
> 1946 came the U.S. Army's Ballixtics research Laboratory ENIAC
- first generation of electronic computers
> John Von Neumann created the stored program architecture in 1945
- Several computers were designed using this
* Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM)
* EDSAC
* EDVAC
- This stored program architecture is used in most computers
- Modern day computers are defined by stored program architecture. In other words this is what makes a modern computer.
About Author:
Jorge Reis is the author of History of computers and Who invented the computer.