Computing hardware has been an important component of the process of calculation and computer data storage since it became useful for numerical values to be processed and shared. The earliest computing hardware was probably some form of tally stick; later record keeping aids include Phoenician clay shapes which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, in containers. Something similar is found in early Minoan excavations. These seem to have been used by the merchants, accountants, and government officials of the time. The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables. ... The history of computing hardware starting in the 1960s begins with the development of the integrated circuit (IC), which formed the basis of the first computer kits and home computers in the 1970s, notable examples being the MITS Altair, Apple II and Commodore PET; and which eventually powered personal and... The history of computing hardware in former Soviet Bloc is somewhat different from that of Western countries. ... The history of computer operating systems recapitulates to a degree, the recent history of computing. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... It has been suggested that the section History from the article Programming language be merged into this article or section. ... Artificial Intelligence was founded in the early 1950s by an eclectic group of visionaries who claimed to be on the verge of changing the world and mans place in it. ... The graphical user interface, or GUI (IPA: ), is a computer interface that uses graphic icons and controls in addition to text. ... Today, the Web and the Internet allow connectivity from literally everywhere on earth—even ships at sea and in outer space. ... Home video-game systems became popular during the 1970s and 80s. ... This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. ... This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from Prehistory until 1949. ... This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 1950 to 1979. ... This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 1980 to 1989. ... This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 1990 to the present. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Tally sticks are an ancient mnemonic device (memory aid) to record and document numbers or quantities even messages. ... Phoenicia (or Phenicia ,[1] from Biblical Phenice [1]) was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coast of modern day Lebanon and Syria. ... For other uses, see Clay (disambiguation). ... Merchants function as professionals who deal with trade, dealing in commodities that they do not produce themselves, in order to produce profit. ... Accountant, or Qualified Accountant, or Professional Accountant, is a certified accountancy and financial expert in the jurisdiction of many countries. ...

Devices to aid computation have changed from simple recording and counting devices to the abacus, the slide rule, analog computers, and more recent electronic computers. Even today, an experienced abacus user using a device hundreds of years old can sometimes complete basic calculations more quickly than an unskilled person using an electronic calculator — though for more complex calculations, computers out-perform even the most skilled human. Some calculations that were previously not feasible to complete within a human lifetime can now be accomplished by computer. It has been suggested that Abax be merged into this article or section. ... A typical 10 inch student slide rule (Pickett N902-T simplex trig). ... A page from the Bombardiers Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden bombsight. ... The tower of a personal computer. ... It has been suggested that Abax be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Calculator (disambiguation). ...

This article covers major developments in the history of computing hardware, and attempts to put them in context. For a detailed timeline of events, see the computing timeline article. The history of computing article is a related overview and treats methods intended for pen and paper, with or without the aid of tables. This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. ... The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables. ...

Earliest devices

Humanity has used devices to aid in computation for millennia. One example is a device for establishing the checkered cloths of the counting houses served as simple for enumerating stacks of coins, by height. A more arithmetic-oriented machine is the abacus. The earliest form of abacus, the dust abacus, is thought to have been invented in Babylonia.^{[citation needed]} The ancient Egyptian bead and wire abacus dates from 500 BC.^{[citation needed]} It has been suggested that Abax be merged into this article or section. ... Babylonia was a state in southern Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. ... Khafres Pyramid and the Great Sphinx of Giza, built about 2550 BC during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom,[1] are enduring symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeastern Africa concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River...

A number of analog computers were constructed in ancient and medieval times to perform astronomical calculations. These include the Antikythera mechanism from ancient Greece (c. 150-100 BC); the Planisphere; some of the inventions of Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (c. 1000 AD); the Equatorium of Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (c. 1015 AD); and the astronomical analog computers of other medieval Muslim astronomers and engineers. A page from the Bombardiers Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden bombsight. ... “Ancient” redirects here. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... The Antikythera mechanism (main fragment). ... The term ancient Greece refers to the periods of Greek history in Classical Antiquity, lasting ca. ... A planisphere consists of a circular star chart attached at the center of the starchart to an opaque overlay that has a clear roundish window (or cutout hole) that is free to rotate about the pivot point. ... (September 15, 973 in Kath, Khwarezm – December 13, 1048 in Ghazni) was a Persian[1][2][3] Muslim polymath[4] of the 11th century, whose experiments and discoveries were as significant and diverse as those of Leonardo da Vinci or Galileo, five hundred years before the Renaissance; al-Biruni was... An Equatorium (plural Equatoria) was a medieval astrometic device used by astronomers. ... “Arzachel” redirects here. ... This is a sub-article of Islamic science and astronomy. ... This is a sub-article of Islamic science and astronomy. ... A significant number of inventions were produced in the Muslim world, many of them with direct implications for Fiqh related issues. ...

John Napier (1550–1617) noted that multiplication and division of numbers can be performed by addition and subtraction, respectively, of logarithms of those numbers. While producing the first logarithmic tables Napier needed to perform many multiplications, and it was at this point that he designed Napier's bones, an abacus-like device used for multiplication and division. For other people with the same name, see John Napier (disambiguation). ... In mathematics, multiplication is an elementary arithmetic operation. ... In mathematics, especially in elementary arithmetic, division is an arithmetic operation which is the inverse of multiplication. ... 3 + 2 = 5 with apples, a popular choice in textbooks[1] This article is about addition in mathematics. ... 5 - 2 = 3 (verbally, five minus two equals three) An example problem Subtraction is one of the four basic arithmetic operations; it is the inverse of addition. ... In mathematics, if two variables of bn = x are known, the third can be found. ... Napiers bones are an abacus invented by John Napier for calculation of products and quotients of numbers. ...

Since real numbers can be represented as distances or intervals on a line, the slide rule was invented in the 1620s to allow multiplication and division operations to be carried out significantly faster than was previously possible. Slide rules were used by generations of engineers and other mathematically inclined professional workers, until the invention of the pocket calculator. The engineers in the Apollo program to send a man to the moon made many of their calculations on slide rules, which were accurate to 3 or 4 significant figures. In mathematics, the real numbers may be described informally as numbers that can be given by an infinite decimal representation, such as 2. ... Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are at any given moment in time. ... In mathematics, interval is a concept relating to the sequence and set-membership of one or more numbers. ... A typical 10 inch student slide rule (Pickett N902-T simplex trig). ... A basic arithmetic calculator. ... This article is about the series of human spaceflight missions. ... This article is about Earths moon. ... Significant figures (also called significant digits and abbreviated sig figs or sig digs, respectively) is a method of expressing errors in measurements. ...

In 1623, Wilhelm Schickard built the first digital mechanical calculator^{[citation needed]} and thus became the father of the computing era. Since his machine used techniques such as cogs and gears first developed for clocks, it was also called a 'calculating clock'. It was put to practical use by his friend Johannes Kepler, who revolutionized astronomy. Wilhelm Schickard Wilhelm Schickard (April 22, 1592 – October 23, 1635) was a German polymath who built the first computer in 1623. ... Kepler redirects here. ...

An original calculator by Pascal (1640) is preserved in the Zwinger Museum. Machines by Blaise Pascal (the Pascaline, 1642), and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1671) followed. Around 1820, Charles Xavier Thomas created the first successful, mass-produced mechanical calculator, the Thomas Arithmometer, that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It was mainly based on Leibniz's work. Mechanical calculators, like the base-ten addiator, the comptometer, the Monroe, the Curta and the Addo-X remained in use until the 1970s. Blaise Pascal (pronounced ), (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. ... Aerial view of the Zwinger Palace The Zwinger Palace in Dresden, is a major German landmark. ... Blaise Pascal (pronounced ), (June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. ... A Pascaline, signed by Pascal in 1652 Blaise Pascal invented the second mechanical calculator, called alternatively the Pascaline or the Arithmetique, in 1645, the first being that of Wilhelm Schickard in 1623. ... Leibniz redirects here. ... Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar (1785-1870) designed and patented the Arithmometer, in 1820. ... The Addiator was a mechanical add/subtract calculator, made by Addiator Gesellschaft, Berlin. ... A Comptometer is a type of mechanical (or electro-mechanical) adding machine. ... The Monroe Calculator Company was a leading maker of adding machines and calculators founded in 1912 by Jay R. Monroe and now known as Monroe Systems for Business. ... The Curta was a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator introduced in 1948. ...

Leibniz also described the binary numeral system, a central ingredient of all modern computers. However, up to the 1940s, many subsequent designs (including Charles Babbage's machines of the 1800s and even ENIAC of 1945) were based on the harder-to-implement decimal system. The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, is a numeral system that represents numeric values using two symbols, usually 0 and 1. ... Babbage redirects here. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1] was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems,[2] although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ...

1801: punched card technology

Punched card system of a music machine. Also referred to as Book music, a one-stop European medium for organs

Punched card system of a 19th Century loom

As early as 1725 Basile Bouchon used a perforated paper loop in a loom to establish the pattern to be reproduced on cloth, and in 1726 his co-worker Jean-Baptiste Falcon improved on his design by using perforated paper cards attached to one another for efficiency in adapting and changing the program. The Bouchon-Falcon loom was semi-automatic and required manual feed of the program. Download high resolution version (750x1000, 137 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (750x1000, 137 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Book Music is the European version of making mechanical music medium for organs in Europe and it is actually similar to piano rolls, but book music is produced by thick cardboard, with perforated holes, and it is presented and played in a folded zig-zag style. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1821x1823, 454 KB) Work by Rama File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): History of computing hardware Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1821x1823, 454 KB) Work by Rama File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): History of computing hardware Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital... Events February 8 - Catherine I became empress of Russia February 20 - The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony. ... Basile Bouchon was a textile worker in Lyon who invented a way to control a loom with a perforated paper tape in 1725. ... Events George Friderich Handel becomes a British subject. ...

In 1801, Joseph-Marie Jacquard developed a loom in which the pattern being woven was controlled by punched cards. The series of cards could be changed without changing the mechanical design of the loom. This was a landmark point in programmability. The Union Jack, flag of the newly formed United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Loom (disambiguation). ... The punch card (or Hollerith card) is a recording medium for holding information for use by automated data processing machines. ...

Herman Hollerith invented a tabulating machine using punched cards in the 1880s.

In 1833, Charles Babbage moved on from developing his difference engine to developing a more complete design, the analytical engine, which would draw directly on Jacquard's punched cards for its programming.[1]. 19th century photograph. ... 19th century photograph. ... Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an German-American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards in order to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. ... The punch card (or Hollerith card) is a recording medium for holding information for use by automated data processing machines. ... Babbage redirects here. ... Part of Babbages Difference engine, assembled after his death by Babbages son, using parts found in his laboratory. ... The analytical engine, an important step in the history of computers, was the design of a mechanical general-purpose computer by the British professor of mathematics Charles Babbage. ...

In 1835 Charles Babbage described his analytical engine. It was the plan of a general-purpose programmable computer, employing punch cards for input and a steam engine for power. One crucial invention was to use gears for the function served by the beads of an abacus. In a real sense, computers all contain automatic abacuses (technically called the arithmetic logic unit or floating-point unit). Babbage redirects here. ... The analytical engine, an important step in the history of computers, was the design of a mechanical general-purpose computer by the British professor of mathematics Charles Babbage. ... A typical schematic symbol for an ALU: A & B are operands; R is the output; F is the input from the Control Unit; D is an output status In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations. ... A floating point unit (FPU) is a part of a CPU specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. ...

His initial idea was to use punch-cards to control a machine that could calculate and print logarithmic tables with huge precision (a specific purpose machine). Babbage's idea soon developed into a general-purpose programmable computer, his analytical engine.

While his design was sound and the plans were probably correct, or at least debuggable, the project was slowed by various problems. Babbage was a difficult man to work with and argued with anyone who didn't respect his ideas. All the parts for his machine had to be made by hand. Small errors in each item can sometimes sum up to large discrepancies in a machine with thousands of parts, which required these parts to be much better than the usual tolerances needed at the time. The project dissolved in disputes with the artisan who built parts and was ended with the depletion of government funding. Debugging is a methodical process of finding and reducing the number of bugs, or defects, in a computer program or a piece of electronic hardware thus making it behave as expected. ...

Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, translated and added notes to the "Sketch of the Analytical Engine" by Federico Luigi, Conte Menabrea. She has become closely associated with Babbage. Some claim she is the world's first computer programmer, however this claim and the value of her other contributions are disputed by many. Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (December 10, 1815 – November 27, 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron, is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbages early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. ... Byron redirects here. ... Federico Luigi, Conte Menabrea, Marquis of Valdora (September 4, 1809 - May 24, 1896), Italian general and statesman, was born at Chambry. ...

A reconstruction of the Difference Engine II, an earlier, more limited design, has been operational since 1991 at the London Science Museum. With a few trivial changes, it works as Babbage designed it and shows that Babbage was right in theory. Part of Babbages Difference engine, assembled after his death by Babbages son, using parts found in his laboratory. ... Science Museum The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, Kensington, London, is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. ...

The museum used computer-operated machine tools to construct the necessary parts, following tolerances which a machinist of the period would have been able to achieve. Some feel that the technology of the time was unable to produce parts of sufficient precision, though this appears to be false. The failure of Babbage to complete the engine can be chiefly attributed to difficulties not only related to politics and financing, but also to his desire to develop an increasingly sophisticated computer. Today, many in the computer field term this sort of obsession creeping featuritis. Creeping featurism, or creeping featuritis, is a phrase used (usually within the sphere of software and information technology) to describe the (often erroneous) idea that more features make a thing or product better than the previous version. ...

In 1890, the United States Census Bureau used punched cards, sorting machines, and tabulating machines designed by Herman Hollerith, to handle the flood of data from the decennial census mandated by the Constitution. Hollerith's company eventually became the core of IBM. IBM developed punched card technology into a powerful tool for business data-processing and produced an extensive line of specialized unit record equipment. By 1950, the IBM card had become ubiquitous in industry and government. The warning printed on most cards intended for circulation as documents (checks, for example), "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate," became a motto for the post-World War II era.^[1] The United States Census Bureau (officially Bureau of the Census as defined in Title ) is a part of the United States Department of Commerce. ... A CTR census machine, utilizing a punched card system. ... Tabulating machine constructed by Hollerith The tabulating machine was a machine designed to assist in tabulations. ... Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was an German-American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards in order to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. ... Image:1870 census Lindauer Weber 01. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue) (NYSE: IBM) (incorporated June 15, 1911, in operation since 1888) is headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, and services. ... Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines. ... A spindle (or colloquially, a spike) is an upright spike used to hold papers waiting for processing. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Following in the footsteps of Babbage, although unaware of his earlier work, was Percy Ludgate, an accountant from Dublin, Ireland. He independently designed a programmable mechanical computer, which he described in a work that was published in 1909. Percy Ludgate (August 2, 1883- October 16, 1922) was an accountant in Dublin and designer of an Analytical Engine. ...

Leslie Comrie's articles on punched card methods and W.J. Eckert's publication of Punched Card Methods in Scientific Computation in 1940, described techniques which were sufficiently advanced to solve differential equations, perform multiplication and division using floating point representations, all on punched cards and unit record machines. The Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau, Columbia University performed astronomical calculations representing the state of the art in computing. Leslie John Comrie (15 August 1893 – 11 December 1950) was an astronomer and a pioneer in mechanical computation. ... Wallace John Eckert (June 19, 1902 – August 24, 1971) was a statistician and computational specialist at the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau at Columbia University. ... Before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical devices called unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or tabulating machines. ... Alma Mater Columbia University is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. ... RAM (Random Access Memory) Look up computing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

In many computer installations, punched cards were used until (and after) the end of the 1970s. For example, science and engineering students at many universities around the world would submit their programming assignments to the local computer centre in the form of a stack of cards, one card per program line, and then had to wait for the program to be queued for processing, compiled, and executed. In due course a printout of any results, marked with the submitter's identification, would be placed in an output tray outside the computer center. In many cases these results would comprise solely a printout of error messages regarding program syntax etc., necessitating another edit-compile-run cycle.^[2] Code and fix development is not so much a deliberate strategy as an artifact of schedule pressure on software developers. ...

Punched cards are still used and manufactured to this day, and their distinctive dimensions (and 80-column capacity) can still be recognized in forms, records, and programs around the world.

1930s–1960s: desktop calculators

Curta calculator

By the 1900s earlier mechanical calculators, cash registers, accounting machines, and so on were redesigned to use electric motors, with gear position as the representation for the state of a variable. Companies like Friden, Marchant Calculator and Monroe made desktop mechanical calculators from the 1930s that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. The word "computer" was a job title assigned to people who used these calculators to perform mathematical calculations. During the Manhattan project, future Nobel laureate Richard Feynman was the supervisor of the roomful of human computers, many of them women mathematicians, who understood the differential equations which were being solved for the war effort. Even the renowned Stanisław Ulam was pressed into service to translate the mathematics into computable approximations for the hydrogen bomb, after the war. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 468 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1117 × 1429 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 468 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1117 × 1429 pixel, file size: 1. ... The Curta was a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator introduced in 1948. ... Friden Calculating Machine Company (Friden, Inc. ... The Marchant Calculating Machine Co. ... The Monroe Calculator Company was a leading maker of adding machines and calculators founded in 1912 by Jay R. Monroe and now known as Monroe Systems for Business. ... This article is about the World War II nuclear project. ... This article is about the physicist. ... Before mechanical and electronic computers, the term computer, in use from the mid 17th century, meant a human undertaking mathematical calculations. ... In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation in which the derivatives of a function appear as variables. ... StanisÅ‚aw Ulam in the 1950s. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ...

In 1948, the Curta was introduced. This was a small, portable, mechanical calculator that was about the size of a pepper grinder. Over time, during the 1950s and 1960s a variety of different brands of mechanical calculator appeared on the market. Curta mechanical calculator on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. ...

The first all-electronic desktop calculator was the British ANITA Mk.VII, which used a Nixie tube display and 177 subminiature thyratron tubes. In June 1963, Friden introduced the four-function EC-130. It had an all-transistor design, 13-digit capacity on a 5-inch CRT, and introduced reverse Polish notation (RPN) to the calculator market at a price of $2200. The model EC-132 added square root and reciprocal functions. In 1965, Wang Laboratories produced the LOCI-2, a 10-digit transistorized desktop calculator that used a Nixie tube display and could compute logarithms. The British ANITA calculator, first manufactured by Sumlock in 1960, was the first electronic desktop calculator. ... The ten digits of a Z560M Nixie tube. ... A thyratron is a type of gas filled tube used as a high energy electrical switch. ... Cathode ray tube employing electromagnetic focus and deflection Cutaway rendering of a color CRT: 1. ... Postfix notation is a mathematical notation wherein every operator follows all of its operands. ... Wang logo circa 1976. ... Logarithms to various bases: is to base e, is to base 10, and is to base 1. ...

With development of the integrated circuits and microprocessors, the expensive, large calculators were replaced with smaller electronic devices. Integrated circuit of Atmel Diopsis 740 System on Chip showing memory blocks, logic and input/output pads around the periphery Microchips with a transparent window, showing the integrated circuit inside. ... Microprocessors, including an Intel 80486DX2 and an Intel 80386 A microprocessor (abbreviated as µP or uP) is an electronic computer central processing unit (CPU) made from miniaturized transistors and other circuit elements on a single semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) (aka microchip or just chip). ...

Advanced analog computers

Cambridge differential analyzer, 1938

Before World War II, mechanical and electrical analog computers were considered the "state of the art", and many thought they were the future of computing. Analog computers use continuously varying amounts of physical quantities, such as voltages or currents, or the rotational speed of shafts, to represent the quantities being processed. An ingenious example of such a machine was the water integrator built in 1928; an electrical example is the Mallock machine built in 1941. Unlike modern digital computers, analog computers are not very flexible, and need to be reconfigured (i.e., reprogrammed) manually to switch them from working on one problem to another. Analog computers had an advantage over early digital computers in that they could be used to solve complex problems while the earliest attempts at digital computers were quite limited. But as digital computers have become faster and used larger memory (e.g., RAM or internal store), they have almost entirely displaced analog computers, and computer programming, or coding has arisen as another human profession. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 584 pixelsFull resolution (1596 × 1166 pixel, file size: 220 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 800 × 584 pixelsFull resolution (1596 × 1166 pixel, file size: 220 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... A page from the Bombardiers Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden bombsight. ... The Water Integrator was an early analog computer built in the Soviet Union in 1936. ... Mallock machine, 1933 The Mallock machine was an electrical analog computer built in 1933 to solve simultaneous linear differential equations. ... RAM redirects here. ... Programming redirects here. ... The term coding has the following meanings: In communications systems, the altering of the characteristics of a signal to make the signal more suitable for an intended application, such as optimizing the signal for transmission, improving transmission quality and fidelity, modifying the signal spectrum, increasing the information content, providing error...

Since computers were rare in this era, the solutions were often hard-coded into paper forms such as graphs and nomograms, which could then allow analog solutions to problems, such as the distribution of pressures and temperatures in a heating system. Smith chart which shows how the complex impedance of a transmission line varies along its length This article is about the graphical devices called nomograms. ...

Some of the most widely deployed analog computers included devices for aiming weapons, such as the Norden bombsight and Fire-control systems for naval vessels. Some of these stayed in use for decades after WWII. One example is the Mark I Fire Control Computer, deployed by the United States Navy on a variety of ships from destroyers to battleships. The Norden bombsight A page from the Bombardiers Information File (BIF) that describes the components and controls of the Norden Bombsight. ... A fire-control system is a computer, often mechanical, which is designed to assist a weapon system in hitting its target. ... Mark 1A Computer The Mark I, and later the Mark IA, Fire Control Computer was the centerpiece of the Mark 37 Gun Fire-control system deployed by the United States Navy during World War II on a variety of ships from destroyers (one per ship) to battleships (four per ship). ... USN redirects here. ... USS McFaul underway in the Atlantic Ocean. ... For other uses, see Battleship (disambiguation). ...

Other examples included the Heathkit EC-1, and the hydraulic MONIAC Computer. Heathkits were products of the Heath Company, Benton Harbor, Michigan. ... Moniac Computer The MONIAC (Monetary National Income Automatic Computer) also known as the Phillips Hydraulic Computer and the Financephalograph, was created in 1949 by the New Zealander economist Bill Phillips to model the national economic processes of the United Kingdom, while Phillips was a student at the London School of...

The art of analog computing reached its zenith with the differential analyzer, invented in 1876 by James Thomson and built by H. W. Nieman and Vannevar Bush at MIT starting in 1927. Fewer than a dozen of these devices were ever built; the most powerful was constructed at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, where the ENIAC was built. Digital electronic computers like the ENIAC spelled the end for most analog computing machines, but hybrid analog computers, controlled by digital electronics, remained in substantial use into the 1950s and 1960s, and later in some specialized applications. The differential analyser was a mechanical analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush in 1927. ... James Thomson (February 16, 1822 - May 8, 1892) was an Irish engineer and physicist whose reputation would have been substantial had it not been overshadowed by that of his brother William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin. ... Vannevar Bush (March 11, 1890 – June 30, 1974) was an American engineer and science administrator, known for his political role in the development of the atomic bomb, and the idea of the memex—seen as a pioneering concept for the World Wide Web. ... Mapúa Institute of Technology (MIT, MapúaTech or simply Mapúa) is a private, non-sectarian, Filipino tertiary institute located in Intramuros, Manila. ... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the private Ivy League university in Philadelphia. ... The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4th, 1923. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1] was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems,[2] although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ...

Early digital computers

The era of modern computing began with a flurry of development before and during World War II, as electronic circuits, relays, capacitors, and vacuum tubes replaced mechanical equivalents and digital calculations replaced analog calculations. Machines such as the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, the Z3, the Colossus, and ENIAC were built by hand using circuits containing relays or valves (vacuum tubes), and often used punched cards or punched paper tape for input and as the main (non-volatile) storage medium. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... An electronic circuit is an electrical circuit that also contains active electronic devices such as transistors or vacuum tubes. ... Automotive style miniature relay A relay is an electrical switch that opens and closes under the control of another electrical circuit. ... See Capacitor (component) for a discussion of specific types. ... Structure of a vacuum tube diode Structure of a vacuum tube triode In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube, or (outside North America) thermionic valve or just valve, is a device used to amplify, switch or modify a signal by controlling the movement of electrons in an evacuated space. ... Atanasoff–Berry Computer replica at 1st floor of Durham Center, Iowa State University The Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic digital computing device. ... Konrad Zuses Z3 was the first working programmable, fully automatic machine, whose attributes, with the addition of conditional branching, have often been the ones used as criteria in defining a computer. ... A Colossus Mark II computer. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1] was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems,[2] although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ... A CTR census machine, utilizing a punched card system. ... A roll of punched tape Punched tape is an old-fashioned form of data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data. ...

In this era, a number of different machines were produced with steadily advancing capabilities. At the beginning of this period, nothing remotely resembling a modern computer existed, except in the long-lost plans of Charles Babbage and the mathematical musings of Alan Turing and others. At the end of the era, devices like the EDSAC had been built, and are universally agreed to be digital computers. Defining a single point in the series as the "first computer" misses many subtleties. Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. ... EDSAC EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was an early British computer (one of the first computers to be created). ...

Alan Turing's 1936 paper proved enormously influential in computing and computer science in two ways. Its main purpose was to prove that there were problems (namely the halting problem) that could not be solved by any sequential process. In doing so, Turing provided a definition of a universal computer, a construct that came to be called a Turing machine, a purely theoretical device that formalizes the concept of algorithm execution, replacing Kurt Gödel's more cumbersome universal language based on arithmetics. Except for the limitations imposed by their finite memory stores, modern computers are said to be Turing-complete, which is to say, they have algorithm execution capability equivalent to a universal Turing machine. This limited type of Turing completeness is sometimes viewed as a threshold capability separating general-purpose computers from their special-purpose predecessors. Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... In computability theory the halting problem is a decision problem which can be stated as follows: Given a description of a program and a finite input, decide whether the program finishes running or will run forever, given that input. ... For the test of artificial intelligence, see Turing test. ... In mathematics, computing, linguistics, and related disciplines, an algorithm is a finite list of well-defined instructions for accomplishing some task that, given an initial state, will terminate in a defined end-state. ... Kurt Gödel (IPA: ) (April 28, 1906 Brünn, Austria-Hungary (now Brno, Czech Republic) – January 14, 1978 Princeton, New Jersey) was an Austrian American mathematician and philosopher. ... In computability theory a programming language or any other logical system is called Turing-complete if it has a computational power equivalent to a universal Turing machine. ...

For a computing machine to be a practical general-purpose computer, there must be some convenient read-write mechanism, punched tape, for example. For full versatility, the Von Neumann architecture uses the same memory both to store programs and data; virtually all contemporary computers use this architecture (or some variant). While it is theoretically possible to implement a full computer entirely mechanically (as Babbage's design showed), electronics made possible the speed and later the miniaturization that characterize modern computers. Design of the Von Neumann architecture For the robotic architecture also named after Von Neumann, see Von Neumann machine The von Neumann architecture is a computer design model that uses a single storage structure to hold both instructions and data. ...

There were three parallel streams of computer development in the World War II era, and two were either largely ignored or were deliberately kept secret. The first was the German work of Konrad Zuse. The second was the secret development of the Colossus computer in the UK. Neither of these had much influence on the various computing projects in the United States. After the war, British and American computing researchers cooperated on some of the most important steps towards a practical computing device. Statue in Bad Hersfeld Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 Berlin - December 18, 1995 Hünfeld) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. ... A Colossus Mark II computer. ...

Konrad Zuse's Z-series: the first program-controlled computers

A reproduction of Zuse's Z1 computer.

Working in isolation in Germany, Konrad Zuse started construction in 1936 of his first Z-series calculators featuring memory and (initially limited) programmability. Zuse's purely mechanical, but already binary Z1, finished in 1938, never worked reliably due to problems with the precision of parts. Download high resolution version (837x494, 79 KB)picture of the Zuse Z1, taken by de:Benutzer:Stahlkocher, GFDL File links The following pages link to this file: History of computing hardware Z1 ... Download high resolution version (837x494, 79 KB)picture of the Zuse Z1, taken by de:Benutzer:Stahlkocher, GFDL File links The following pages link to this file: History of computing hardware Z1 ... Statue in Bad Hersfeld Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 Berlin - December 18, 1995 Hünfeld) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. ... reproduction of the Z1 The Z1 was a mechanical computer created by Konrad Zuse in 1937. ...

Zuse's subsequent machine, the Z3, was finished in 1941. It was based on telephone relays and did work satisfactorily. The Z3 thus became the first functional program-controlled, all-purpose, digital computer. In many ways it was quite similar to modern machines, pioneering numerous advances, such as floating point numbers. Replacement of the hard-to-implement decimal system (used in Charles Babbage's earlier design) by the simpler binary system meant that Zuse's machines were easier to build and potentially more reliable, given the technologies available at that time. This is sometimes viewed as the main reason why Zuse succeeded where Babbage failed. Konrad Zuses Z3 was the first working programmable, fully automatic machine, whose attributes, with the addition of conditional branching, have often been the ones used as criteria in defining a computer. ... A floating-point number is a digital representation for a number in a certain subset of the rational numbers, and is often used to approximate an arbitrary real number on a computer. ... Babbage redirects here. ...

Programs were fed into Z3 on punched films. Conditional jumps were missing, but since the 1990s it has been proved theoretically that Z3 was still a universal computer (ignoring its physical storage size limitations). In two 1936 patent applications, Konrad Zuse also anticipated that machine instructions could be stored in the same storage used for data – the key insight of what became known as the Von Neumann architecture and was first implemented in the later British EDSAC design (1949). Zuse also claimed to have designed the first higher-level programming language, (Plankalkül), in 1945 (which was published in 1948) although it was implemented for the first time in 2000 by a team around Raúl Rojas at the Free University of Berlin – five years after Zuse died. Konrad Zuses Z3 was the first working programmable, fully automatic machine, whose attributes, with the addition of conditional branching, have often been the ones used as criteria in defining a computer. ... For the test of artificial intelligence, see Turing test. ... For other uses, see Patent (disambiguation). ... Statue in Bad Hersfeld Konrad Zuse (June 22, 1910 Berlin - December 18, 1995 Hünfeld) was a German engineer and computer pioneer. ... Design of the Von Neumann architecture For the robotic architecture also named after Von Neumann, see Von Neumann machine The von Neumann architecture is a computer design model that uses a single storage structure to hold both instructions and data. ... A programming language is an artificial language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer. ... Plankalkül (German, Plan Calculus) is a computer language developed for engineering purposes by Konrad Zuse. ... Raúl Rojas (born 1955, in Mexico City) is a professor of informatics and mathematics at the Free University of Berlin and a renowned specialist in artificial neural networks. ... Satellite photo of Berlin. ...

Zuse suffered setbacks during World War II when some of his machines were destroyed in the course of Allied bombing campaigns. Apparently his work remained largely unknown to engineers in the UK and US until much later, although at least IBM was aware of it as it financed his post-war startup company in 1946 in return for an option on Zuse's patents. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Look up ally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

American developments

In 1937, Claude Shannon produced his master's thesis at MIT that implemented Boolean algebra using electronic relays and switches for the first time in history. Entitled A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, Shannon's thesis essentially founded practical digital circuit design. Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001), an American electrical engineer and mathematician, has been called the father of information theory,[1] and was the founder of practical digital circuit design theory. ... “MIT” redirects here. ... Boolean algebra is the finitary algebra of two values. ... In his 1937 MIT masters thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, Claude Elwood Shannon proved that Boolean algebra and binary arithmetic could be used to simplify the arrangement of the electromechanical relays then used in telephone routing switches, then turned the concept upside down and also... Digital circuits are electric circuits based on a number of discrete voltage levels. ...

In November of 1937, George Stibitz, then working at Bell Labs, completed a relay-based computer he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen", where he had assembled it), which calculated using binary addition. Bell Labs authorized a full research program in late 1938 with Stibitz at the helm. Their Complex Number Calculator, completed January 8, 1940, was able to calculate complex numbers. In a demonstration to the American Mathematical Society conference at Dartmouth College on September 11, 1940, Stibitz was able to send the Complex Number Calculator remote commands over telephone lines by a teletype. It was the first computing machine ever used remotely, in this case over a phone line. Some participants in the conference who witnessed the demonstration were John Von Neumann, John Mauchly, and Norbert Wiener, who wrote about it in his memoirs. George Stibitz George Robert Stibitz (April 20, 1904 – January 31, 1995) is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. ... Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The complex numbers are an extension of the real numbers, in which all non-constant polynomials have roots. ... The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and education, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards to mathematicians. ... Dartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as Trustees of Dartmouth College,[6][7] it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine colonial colleges founded before the American Revolution. ... is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is a now largely obsolete electro-mechanical typewriter which can be used to communicate typed messages from point to point through a simple electrical communications channel, often just a pair of wires. ... For other persons named John Neumann, see John Neumann (disambiguation). ... Eckert and Mauchly examine a printout of ENIAC results in a newsreel from February 1946. ... Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894, Columbia, Missouri – March 18, 1964, Stockholm Sweden) was an American theoretical and applied mathematician. ...

In 1939, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry of Iowa State University developed the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC), a special purpose digital electronic calculator for solving systems of linear equations. (The original goal was to solve 29 simultaneous equations of 29 unknowns each, but due to errors in the card puncher mechanism the completed machine could only solve a few equations.) The design used over 300 vacuum tubes for high speed and employed capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory. Though the ABC machine was not programmable, it was the first to use electronic circuits. ENIAC co-inventor John Mauchly examined the ABC in June 1941, and its influence on the design of the later ENIAC machine is a matter of contention among computer historians. The ABC was largely forgotten until it became the focus of the lawsuit Honeywell v. Sperry Rand, the ruling of which invalidated the ENIAC patent (and several others) as, among many reasons, having been anticipated by Atanasoff's work. John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist of Bulgarian descent. ... Clifford Berry (1918 - 1963) helped John Vincent Atanasoff create the first digital electronic computers in 1939 - the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC). ... Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) is a public land-grant and space-grant university located in Ames, Iowa, USA. Until 1959 it was known as Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. ... Atanasoff–Berry Computer replica at 1st floor of Durham Center, Iowa State University The Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic digital computing device. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1] was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems,[2] although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ... Eckert and Mauchly examine a printout of ENIAC results in a newsreel from February 1946. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1] was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems,[2] although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ... Honeywell, Inc. ...

In 1939, development began at IBM's Endicott laboratories on the Harvard Mark I. Known officially as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, the Mark I was a general purpose electro-mechanical computer built with IBM financing and with assistance from IBM personnel, under the direction of Harvard mathematician Howard Aiken. Its design was influenced by Babbage's Analytical Engine, using decimal arithmetic and storage wheels and rotary switches in addition to electromagnetic relays. It was programmable via punched paper tape, and contained several calculation units working in parallel. Later versions contained several paper tape readers and the machine could switch between readers based on a condition. Nevertheless, the machine was not quite Turing-complete. The Mark I was moved to Harvard University and began operation in May 1944. Portion of the Harvard-IBM Mark 1, left side. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ... Harvard Mark I / IBM ASCC, left side. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ...

Colossus

Colossus was used to break German ciphers during World War II.

During World War II, the British at Bletchley Park achieved a number of successes at breaking encrypted German military communications. The German encryption machine, Enigma, was attacked with the help of electro-mechanical machines called bombes. The bombe, designed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, after the Polish cryptographic bomba (1938), ruled out possible Enigma settings by performing chains of logical deductions implemented electrically. Most possibilities led to a contradiction, and the few remaining could be tested by hand. Old photo of the Colossus computer Photo source: Public record office, London. ... Old photo of the Colossus computer Photo source: Public record office, London. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... During World War II, codebreakers at Bletchley Park decrypted and interpreted messages from a large number of Axis code and cipher systems, including the German Enigma machine. ... In the history of cryptography, the Enigma was a portable cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. ... The Bombe replicated the action of several Enigma machines wired together. ... The Bombe replicated the action of several Enigma machines wired together. ... Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. ... William Gordon Welchman (15 June 1906–8 October 1985) was a British mathematician and World War II codebreaker at Bletchley Park. ... Cryptologic bomb. ...

The Germans also developed a series of teleprinter encryption systems, quite different from Enigma. The Lorenz SZ 40/42 machine was used for high-level Army communications, termed "Tunny" by the British. The first intercepts of Lorenz messages began in 1941. As part of an attack on Tunny, Professor Max Newman and his colleagues helped specify the Colossus. The Mk I Colossus was built between March and December 1943 by Tommy Flowers and his colleagues at the