Who Made the First Computer?
The history of computers is very interesting and colorful. If you want
to know who made the first computer, then read further to know more.
The answer to the question who made the first computer in the world, is
not an easy one. There was never a perfect computer developed like the
one which we are using today. It developed gradually and with combined
efforts, the perfect machine was made. Hence a single person cannot be
given the credit of making the modern computer. However, Charles Babbage
is known to have conceived the idea of the computer first. Hence, he is
also known as the 'Father of Computers'.
The First Computer
Charles Babbage was a British math professor. It was he who thought of
building an analytical engine, which was the first mechanical computer
which could store programs. It was in the year 1837, almost 100 years
before the origin of computers. It is really extraordinary for a person
to
think of building a machine which was way ahead of its time. But then,
unfortunately, the analytical machine was never completed because of
political, legal and financial obstacles. Then, almost a century later,
in the year 1936, Konrad Zuse made world's first program controlled
computing machine in Germany. Many believe that it was Zuse who made the
first
computer. His machine was named as Z1. Because of the war during that
time, Zuse faced many hardships for building his machine. And it paid
off well. The Z1 developed by Zuse had a 64-word memory and each of
these words contained 22 bits. This was when the first programmable
computer was developed. Later, Zuse developed Z2 and Z3 machines.
Around the same time in the year 1937, at the Iowa State University, the
first electronic digital computer was made. It was called ABC which
stood for Atanasoff-Berry Computer. It was developed by John V.
Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It took Atanasoff and Berry a few years to
build this machine. The ABC was the first digital computer. Then later
in the year 1943, a project was initiated by J. Presper Eckert and John
Mauchly. They
began their project in the year 1943 and it took almost 3 years to build
this machine. It was known as ENIAC. It stands for Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer. It was the first digital computer and the one
which could be re-programmed. This machine was massive and it took more
than 1500 square feet of space. It had numerous vacuum tubes,
capacitors, relays, resistors, etc. This mammoth machine weighed almost
30 tons.
The First Personal Computer
Personal desktop computers were possible because of the invention of
microprocessors. Microprocessor is a miniature chip which is equivalent
to thousands of transistors. Because of this chip, the size of the CPU
decreased. However, the credit for making the very first computer
for personal use goes to Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS)
which developed a computer kit known as Altair 8800. After its
development, there was a rising demand for this product. And hence
commercially, Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack) developed its machine in
the year 1977. It had a keyboard and also a cathode-ray display terminal (CRT).
Then later in the year 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of
Apple Computers developed the Apple I and later Apple II, which had
their own version of microprocessors. And then in early 1980s, IBM
brought in its IBM PC, which was IBM's own microcomputer model. In the
later years, the burgeoning field of computers saw more and more
developments and
modification.
The First Laptop
Like how personal computers evolved gradually, in the same manner,
laptops too evolved. The very first portable computer was developed by
Xerox PARC and they named it Xerox NoteTaker. Though this machine was
never mass produced, but then it served as a prototype for other
machines to be followed. And then the first portable laptop computer was
made by Osborne Computer Corporation and was named Osborne 1. Adam
Osborne created this machine. Computers are still evolving and changing
gradually. We can see more and more technological developments in this
field now, replacing older systems and programs. All it is doing is
helping
us and reduce our workload.
Thanks for Reading **********
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