Computer Hope
Other => Other => Topic started by: Cityscape on April 16, 2010, 03:56:13 PM
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What was the first computer? I'll be teaching an elementary school computer class on Monday. And I'm going to do a bit about the history of computers (followed by Hardware & operating). Any kind help is appreciated. I think someone did a really good thing on the history, I think it might have been Mulreay, would anyone know how to find that?
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Looking for history of computers, like who built the first computers, etc? See the links below, it should help :)
1. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990596,00.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
3. http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
4. http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/ or http://www.computerhistory.org/
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Also read this from right here on CH.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm (http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm)
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the worlds first computer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2005/11/07/baby_computer_40_interview_feature.shtml
http://www.leo-computers.org.uk/index.htm
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?vc=&p=worlds+first+computer&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-702
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First digital computer was the Abacus. :P
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First digital computer was the Abacus. :P
going back still , what about stones set out on the ground to count them
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Thanks for the help guys. 8)
The first digital computer was Harvard’s Mark I.
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Thanks for the help guys. 8)
The first digital computer was Harvard’s Mark I.
no problem
your question was:- the first computer not digital ;D
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Thanks for the help guys. 8)
The first digital computer was Harvard’s Mark I.
Not viewed from this side of the Atlantic. The British Colossus was earlier, but you won't be told that in an American school. (anyone remember the U-571 movie?)
British Colossus - electronic, first run December 1943
American Mark I - electro-mechanical, first run May 1944
The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), called the Mark I by Harvard University, was probably the last electro-mechanical computer. The British Colossus computers, used for decoding German encrypted messages, were the world's first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices. They used vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) to perform the calculations and thus were not only earlier, but more modern than the Mark I. They were kept secret for many decades which led to claims of "firsts" in computing that later turned out to be incorrect.
In fact if you allow electro-mechanical calculating machines like the Mark I to be called "computers", then I think that the German Konrad Zuse's Mark 3 of 1941 has a prior claim.
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Not viewed from this side of the Atlantic.
Really? I got this from a British source.
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Really? I got this from a British source.
Not a very well-informed one, it would seem. Would you care to name it?
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A computer is something that computes.. i.e. calculates.
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Get your English lessons chez les belges... avec frites alors !
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You should mention something about difference engines, which were the first sophisticated calculators, and which were built about 100 years earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine)
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quote salmon trout :- Not viewed from this side of the Atlantic.
you will never win that one everything here came second , we did not invent anything in the world , or start football , hockey , racing , car racing , the list go'es on , they were all started somewhere else , i just forget which country
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Alan Turing was British...
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Have some posts been deleted from this thread ???
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Why would you want to know?
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Why would you want to know?
Because I started the thread. And I'm quite sure i made a few posts that seem to be missing. And I think Treval & harry 48 made posts too that I no longer see.
Were some deleted, or split into other threads or what happened?
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Because I started the thread. And I'm quite sure i made a few posts that seem to be missing. And I think Treval & harry 48 made posts too that I no longer see.
Were some deleted, or split into other threads or what happened?
AFAIK the only posts that were deleted were Treval's...
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AFAIK the only posts that were deleted were Treval's...
Well I'm sure at least 1 of mine was deleted.
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Not a very well-informed one, it would seem. Would you care to name it?
A computer history timeline done by Graham Mulreay of www.spaceandscience.co.uk
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A computer history timeline done by Graham Mulreay of www.spaceandscience.co.uk
Couldn't find it; could you give a link to the actual page? Anyhow, who is this Mulreay guy? A person with a website. If he got the first computer thing wrong, how can you trust anything he says?
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Couldn't find it; could you give a link to the actual page? Anyhow, who is this Mulreay guy? A person with a website. If he got the first computer thing wrong, how can you trust anything he says?
he's a member here, I think he posted a timeline on the forum somewhere. I'm pretty sure it included the collossus, but I'm not certain.
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Couldn't find it; could you give a link to the actual page? Anyhow, who is this Mulreay guy? A person with a website. If he got the first computer thing wrong, how can you trust anything he says?
Timeline (or one of it's copies) is here: http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=86901.0
Mulreay is a computer hope member, I'm surprised you don't know of him.
I'm pretty sure it included the collossus, but I'm not certain.
No, he didn't include the collossus.
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Anyhow, I got the dates for the Harvard and Colossus from these things called "books"...
Computer: A History of the Information Machine (Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, 2nd Edition 2004)
Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers. (Jack Copeland Oxford University Press 2006)
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The timeline misses out quite a lot of things, including "Napier's Bones" (1617) and as I mentioned earlier, Colossus and the Zuse machines, as well as a number of pioneering British machines of the period 1945-1960. In any case it is hardly research material suitable for a teacher preparing a class.
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Couldn't find it; could you give a link to the actual page? Anyhow, who is this Mulreay guy? A person with a website. If he got the first computer thing wrong, how can you trust anything he says?
WHO is mulreay :o ??? ::)
Status Username Email Website ICQ AIM YIM MSN Position Date Registered Posts
Mulreay Expert 2009-03-22 2499
Pages: [1]
http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=63398
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Anyhow, who is this Mulreay guy?
I meant, "What is his status as a historian of computing other than a guy with a web site or a guy who posted a timeline on Computer Hope?"
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(http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/images/1940_complex.jpg)
This device was made in a939 and was used in 1940 for remove accese computations done by a human sending instructions to the device over a phone line using Teletype technology. The calculations were programmable and complex. It was not theoretical, nor only a classroom novelty. It really worked.
Should it be disqualified because it required elector mechanical devices?
Computers with no electron mechanical cores were not _______.
(Please finish my sentence, my brain has a stack overflow.)
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I meant, "What is his status as a historian of computing other than a guy with a web site or a guy who posted a timeline on Computer Hope?"
he is a prof; in computing at manchester uni; and has worked in Harvard uni; instructing the teachers also at NASA on the shuttles computers
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he is a prof; in computing at manchester uni; and has worked in Harvard uni; instructing the teachers also at NASA on the shuttles computers
umm...
No.
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Should it be disqualified because it required elector mechanical devices?
No, it should be disqualified at the moment because all you've provided is a picture and a little blurb of your own text, and absolutely no reference material.
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No, it should be disqualified at the moment because all you've provided is a picture and a little blurb of your own text, and absolutely no reference material.
Pictures have power. Better yet, go there an look.
The Computer History Museum in an Jose, California, Here is a map.
http://www.computerhistory.org/directions/ (http://www.computerhistory.org/directions/)
The mission of the Computer History Museum is to preserve and present for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age. As such, the Museum plays a unique role in the history of the computing revolution and its worldwide impact on the human experience.
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umm...
No.
BC_Programmer, humor , lighten up ;D
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Better yet, go there an look.
The Computer History Museum in an Jose, California, Here is a map.
::)
So In order to confirm what you've said I'm supposed to travel to a city 1327 km (824 miles) from where I am?
And yet you still provide nothing. The image proves nothing. If I take a picture of a CD-ROM with grayscale and say it's from 1939 that doesn't make it so.
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Actually, if you dig through the site it's pretty interesting. Lots of photos and information about early computers, components and people. It should settle a lot of questions about which was first.
This is what they say about the machine Geek posted.
I'm not sure why Geek posted the directions page, since most of don't live it that area.
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype connected via special telephone lines. This is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing.
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I'm not sure why Geek posted the directions page,
since most of don't live it that area.
Sorry, I was in Bay Area so long that
I thought over 800 miles away was
the limit of technological civilization. :P
Technological civilization is awesome. (http://radgeek.com/gt/2009/08/17/technological-civilization-is-awesome-contd/)
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Well I'm sure at least 1 of mine was deleted.
None of yours were deleted...
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BC_Programmer, humor , lighten up ;D
A "prof" at a Manchester "uni" would certainly have mentioned the Atlas and Manchester Mark I computers in a timeline. Harry 48, where did you get that information?
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salmon trout and BC_Programmer
do you both not see or understand the joke , humor , comedy in my answer ::) what's the world coming to :(
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salmon trout and BC_Programmer
do you both not see or understand the joke , humor , comedy in my answer ::) what's the world coming to :(
Oh! Right! You were being ironic! Fair play to you, mate, but I have to say, that can be tricky to pull off on a web forum sometimes.
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Oh! Right! You were being ironic! Fair play to you, mate, but I have to say, that can be tricky to pull off on a web forum sometimes.
ironic thats the word i could not find in my brain ;D yes your right a lot of people don't understand it or get it ;D
did you visit mulreays site myself and others here are members , and when you reach 2,000 posts you get a free weekend trip to NASA
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did you visit mulreays site
Yes, it has a very black background, I noticed.
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visit mine if you want black ;D
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black... black... black!!!! (The Fast Show)
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did you go its beside my profile
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Yes; looks good; I've bookmarked it. When I said the other site was very black, I was being sarcastic, could you tell?
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Yes; looks good; I've bookmarked it. When I said the other site was very black, I was being sarcastic, could you tell?
o'yes , sarcasim is my forty
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o'yes , sarcasim is my forty
Harry, are you only forty?
Thought you were 48! ::)
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Harry, are you only forty?
Thought you were 48! ::)
i wish i was , i'll be retiring in may at the age of 65 , 48 is the no. of the house we live in ;D
i think i spelt it wrong it's fort'e
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i think i spelt it wrong it's fort'e
forte
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forte
o'right i thought it was a french word
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o'right i thought it was a french word
It was
1. Something in which a person excels.
2. The strong part of a sword blade, between the middle and the hilt.
[French fort, from Old French, strong, from Latin fortis. See fort.]
USAGE NOTE The word forte, coming from French fort, should properly be pronounced with one syllable, like the English word fort. Common usage, however, prefers the two-syllable pronunciation, (fôr'tā'), which has been influenced possibly by the music term forte borrowed from Italian. Speakers who are aware of the origin of the word may wish to continue to pronounce it as one syllable but at a risk of puzzling their listeners.
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It was
great , thank you thats made my day knowing that , now i can go to bed happy and relax with that locked in my brain
is that ironic again or sarcasim ;D