First computer used store programs

The Z3 was used for aerodynamic calculations but was destroyed in a bombing raid on Berlin in late Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the s, which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Hundreds of allied bombes were built in order to determine the daily rotor start positions of Enigma cipher machines, which in turn allowed the Allies to decrypt German messages.

The basic idea for bombes came from Polish code-breaker Marian Rejewski's "Bomba. After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in , Professor John Vincent Atanasoff receives funds to build a full-scale machine at Iowa State College now University. The machine was designed and built by Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry between and The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared un-patentable and thus freely open to all.

The replica is currently on display at the Computer History Museum. The US Army asked Bell Laboratories to design a machine to assist in testing its M-9 gun director, a type of analog computer that aims large guns to their targets.

Mathematician George Stibitz recommends using a relay-based calculator for the project. The Relay Interpolator used relays, and since it was programmable by paper tape, was used for other applications following the war.

A total of ten Colossi were delivered, each using as many as 2, vacuum tubes. A series of pulleys transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing possible solutions to a particular code. Colossus reduced the time to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. Most historians believe that the use of Colossus machines significantly shortened the war by providing evidence of enemy intentions and beliefs.

The Mark 1 produced mathematical tables but was soon superseded by electronic stored-program computers. In a widely circulated paper, mathematician John von Neumann outlines the architecture of a stored-program computer, including electronic storage of programming information and data -- which eliminates the need for more clumsy methods of programming such as plugboards, punched cards and paper.

Hungarian-born von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics, and the use of mechanical devices for computation. Under the leadership of MIT's Gordon Brown and Jay Forrester, the team first built a small analog simulator, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. News of the groundbreaking electronic ENIAC computer that same year inspired the group to change course and attempt a digital solution, whereby flight variables could be rapidly programmed in software.

Completed in , Whirlwind remains one of the most important computer projects in the history of computing. Because of its electronic, as opposed to electromechanical, technology, it is over 1, times faster than any previous computer. ENIAC used panel-to-panel wiring and switches for programming, occupied more than 1, square feet, used about 18, vacuum tubes and weighed 30 tons.

It was believed that ENIAC had done more calculation over the ten years it was in operation than all of humanity had until that time. Their first program, consisting of seventeen instructions and written by Kilburn, ran on June 21st, This was the first program in history to run on a digital, electronic, stored-program computer.

These tables were later confirmed by using more modern computers for the actual flights. The SSEC was one of the last of the generation of 'super calculators' to be built using electromechanical technology. It was transferred to the Department of Physics at the University of Melbourne in and remained in service until The first practical stored-program computer to provide a regular computing service, EDSAC is built at Cambridge University using vacuum tubes and mercury delay lines for memory.

Wilkes' ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended three years earlier. This type of computer is useful in performing many of the mathematical equations scientists and engineers encounter in their work. It was originally created for a nuclear missile design project in by a team led by Fred Steele. It used 53 vacuum tubes and hundreds of germanium diodes, with a magnetic drum for memory.

Tracks on the drum did the mathematical integration. The Manchester Mark I used more than 1, vacuum tubes and occupied an area the size of a medium room. The , designed by ERA but built by Remington-Rand, was intended for high-speed computing and stored 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, one of the earliest magnetic storage devices and a technology which ERA had done much to perfect in its own laboratories.

The design packed vacuum tubes into a relatively compact 12 square feet. The hobbyist magazine Radio Electronics publishes Edmund Berkeley's design for the Simon 1 relay computer from to Let us call it Simon, because of its predecessor, Simple Simon Simon is so simple and so small in fact that it could be built to fill up less space than a grocery-store box; about four cubic feet. It was built in Washington DC as a test-bed for evaluating components and systems as well as for setting computer standards.

It was also one of the first computers to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes. SWAC was used to solve problems in numerical analysis, including developing climate models and discovering five previously unknown Mersenne prime numbers. A British government contract spurred its initial development but a change in government led to loss of funding and the second and only other Mark I was sold at a major loss to the University of Toronto, where it was re-christened FERUT.

The Univac 1 is the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. One biblical scholar even used a Univac 1 to compile a concordance to the King James version of the Bible. After the success of the first LEO, Lyons went into business manufacturing computers to meet the growing need for data processing systems in business.

The Institute of Advanced Study IAS computer is a multi-year research project conducted under the overall supervision of world-famous mathematician John von Neumann. The IAS computer was designed for scientific calculations and it performed essential work for the US atomic weapons program.

The bit machine used 92 point-contact transistors and diodes. During three years of production, IBM sells 19 s to research laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government. Programmer Arthur Samuels used the to write the first computer program designed to play checkers. It was named after John von Neumann, a world famous mathematician and computer pioneer of the day. Johnniac was used for scientific and engineering calculations. It was also repeatedly expanded and improved throughout its year lifespan.

Many innovative programs were created for Johnniac, including the time-sharing system JOSS that allowed many users to simultaneously access the machine. IBM establishes the as its first mass-produced computer, with the company selling in just one year.

The Model was also highly popular in universities, where a generation of students first learned programming. Over 30 were completed, including one delivered to Australia.

Typically, computer users of the time fed their programs into a computer using punched cards or paper tape. Doug Ross wrote a memo advocating direct access in February. Ross contended that a Flexowriter -- an electrically-controlled typewriter -- connected to an MIT computer could function as a keyboard input device due to its low cost and flexibility. An experiment conducted five months later on the MIT Whirlwind computer confirmed how useful and convenient a keyboard input device could be.

For easy replacement, designers placed each transistor circuit inside a "bottle," similar to a vacuum tube. DEC is founded initially to make electronic modules for test, measurement, prototyping and control markets. Headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts, Digital Equipment Corporation, took over 8, square foot leased space in a nineteenth century mill that once produced blankets and uniforms for soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

The mill is still in use today as an office park Clock Tower Place today. The is built on a 'building block' concept which allows it to be highly flexible for many different uses and could simultaneously control up to 63 tape drives—very useful for large databases of information. For many business users, quick access to this huge storage capability outweighed its relatively slow processing speed.

Customers included US military as well as industry. Its task was to detect incoming Soviet bombers and direct interceptor aircraft to destroy them. Operators directed actions by touching a light gun to the SAGE airspace display. Its large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first computerized video game, SpaceWar!

More than 50 PDP-1s were sold. It was sold exclusively in Japan, but could process alphabetic and Japanese kana characters. Only about thirty NEACs were sold. It managed Japan's first on-line, real-time reservation system for Kinki Nippon Railways in The last one was decommissioned in At the top of the line was the Model , also known as "Stretch. The consortium triumphed, decimating American memory suppliers and provoking the U. Although tensions eased between Japanese and American manufacturers, Korea soon overtook them both.

The device converted digital information from the computer into analog sound signals which were stored on compact cassettes. The method was cost-effective and reliable, but also very slow. It was one of the first successful consoles that used interchangeable cartridges with factory programmed ROM chips to store the software.

At first, designers planned to use an internal ROM chip that contained several pre-programmed games. It offered better audio and video quality than its competitors, but LaserDisc players were prohibitively expensive for many consumers. That fact, in conjunction with the availability of only a limited LaserDisc library, helped it gain significant popularity only in parts of Asia.

This was the result of a request by Wang Laboratories to produce a disk drive small enough to use with a desktop computer, since 8-inch floppy drives were considered too large for that purpose. Intel introduces its 4 Mbit bubble memory array. A few magnetic bubble memories reached the market in the s and s and were used in niche markets like video games and machine tool controllers.

The introduction of cheaper, faster and higher density memory solutions rendered bubble memory obsolete. Each silver square, or "bubble," on this board stored 1 Mbit. Seagate Technology creates the first hard disk drive for microcomputers, the ST The disk held 5 megabytes of data, five times as much as a standard floppy disk, and fit in the space of a floppy disk drive.

The hard disk drive itself was a rigid metallic platter coated on both sides with a thin layer of magnetic material that stores digital data. Seagate Technology grew out of a conversation between Alan Shugart and Finis Conner, who had worked together at Memorex.

Within a few years, it sold 4 million units. The Bernoulli Box is released. Using a special cartridge-based system that used hard disk technology, the Bernoulli Box was a type of removable storage that allowed people to move large files between computers when few alternatives such as a network existed.

Allowing for many times the amount of storage afforded by a regular floppy disk, the cartridges came in capacities ranging from 5MB to MB. The CD was developed by Sony and Philips in for distributing music. The 9 million words in the encyclopedia only took up 12 percent of the available space.

The same year, computer and electronics companies worked together to set a standard for the disks so any computer would be able to access the information. The HSC50 contains local intelligence capable of managing the physical activity of the drives, optimizing subsystem throughput, detecting and correcting physical errors, and performing local functions such as diagnostic execution without host intervention.

CompacTape is introduced. It replaced the s-era DECtape, and its usage grew rapidly in the mids. Fujio Masuoka invents flash memory in while working for Toshiba.

Capable of being erased and re-programmed multiple times, flash memory quickly gained a loyal following in the computer memory industry. IBM withdrew the system in but the new format caught on with other computer makers who began making compatible storage systems for several years after that, offering increased storage capacity in the same physical format. Before SCSI, external devices such as hard drives had specific and non-standardized interfaces for connecting to computers.

SCSI introduced a common, single adapter for all of these devices. Commonly used in tape drives and hard disks, the SCSI interface allowed for multi-tasking when processing commands at a high speed. The CPA was controlled by a microprocessor, used embedded servo positioning, and had self-testing functionality. It gained a huge market share very quickly due to an agreement with Compaq to use the product in their computers.

Due to the customer-investor relationship with Compaq, Conner Peripherals became one of the fastest growing US companies at that time. IBM's hard disk drive is introduced.

Codenamed "Sawmill," it was the first hard disk drive to use magneto-resistive heads. Magneto-resistive heads gave the an advantage over its competitors, as the bits could be stored more densely. Magneto-Optical Discs are introduced. Housed in cartridges, they are a combination a magnetic and optical storage, as their name suggests.

They could be rewritten up to one million times. SanDisk, which at time was known as SunDisk, manufactured the module which used non-volatile memory chips to replace the spinning disks of a hard disk drive.

SanDisk recognized that handheld devices and computers were becoming lighter and smaller, and that flash memory, as was used in the SSD module, offered powerful advantages over hard disks. Storage Tek announces upgrades to its ACS tape library. The first truly portable computer or laptop is considered to be the Osborne I , which was released in April and developed by Adam Osborne. The Osborne I weighed The computer kit was developed by Steve Wozniak in and contained a 8-bit processor and 4 kb of memory, which was expandable to 8 or 48 kb using expansion cards.

Although the Apple I had a fully assembled circuit board, the kit required a power supply , display , keyboard , and case to be operational. Below is a picture of an Apple I from an advertisement by Apple. The computer was code-named Acorn. When was the first computer invented? Note Early inventions that lead up to the computer, such as the abacus , astrolabe, slide rule , clocks, calculator , and tablet machines, are not accounted for on this page.

When was the word "computer" first used? First mechanical computer or automatic computing engine concept. First general-purpose computer. The first machine to record and store information. First programmable computer. First concepts of what we consider a modern computer.

The first electric programmable computer. The first digital computer. The first stored program computer. The first computer company. First computer with a program stored in memory. First commercial computer. IBM's first computer. The first computer with RAM. The first transistor computer. The first minicomputer.

However, the paper that received the most attention was by Claude Shannon in for his master's thesis at MIT. In the early twentieth century mechanical calculators were being replaced by electrical ones. These machines used electric circuits and motors to do complex calculations.

The key element in these calculators was the electromagnetic relay. The relay was basically a switch that allowed an electric current to pass through when it received a signal. Early telegraph and telephone devices used relays to transmit information. In the mid 's relays were used by at least three experimenters in the building of electro-mechanical calculators. In a radical departure from other developers of calculating machines, Konrad Zuse used binary representation of numbers in the internal computation of his machine that was designed to solve complex engineering equations.

In , he completed the Z3 that used relays to store sixty-four digit binary numbers and there were additional relays for calculating and control units.

Instructions were fed to the computer on perforated mm movie film. George Stibitz, working as a research mathematician at Bell Labs had little knowledge of Konrad Zuse's work.

In he built a Complex Number Computer that performed multiplication and division on complex numbers. The novelty of this computer was that it was accessed remotely using a teletype machine. After United States entered the Second World War, Bell Labs became more interested in problems that had immediate applications in defense. They built five digital relay computers for the military.

The largest computer in this series was Model V that contained 9, relays and handled numbers expressed in scientific notation. Model V was a general purpose calculator and solved a variety of numerical problems.

The program and data were fed to the computer using paper tapes. It was 51 feet long, 8 feet tall, and only 2 feet deep. There was drive shaft that ran along the base. This machine used relay circuits for internal computation and punched paper tape for instructions and data.

It handled 23 digits decimal numbers and could perform all four arithmetic operations. The machine was used by the United States Navy for doing classified work. One of the programmers was a recently commissioned Naval officer Grace Hopper.

It was she who found a moth trapped between two relay circuits causing the machine to malfunction. She removed the moth and attached it to her logbook noting that she found the bug that was causing the problem! There were several generations of the Harvard Mark computers. But by the end of the forties engineers realized that they had reached the limits of the relay circuit technology and that a switch needed to be made to vacuum tubes.