Who Invented Computer

Who Invented Computer: Comprehensive Overview in 2024

It can be confusing to distinguish between the several categories that exist for computers, and it can also be challenging to pinpoint which category the original computer invention belongs to. We may argue that the earliest computer was the abacus or its progenitor, the slide rule, created by William Oughtred in 1622. However, the Analytical Engine built by Charles Babbage (the man who invented computers) between 1833 and 1871 was the first machine to resemble modern computers. Before Babbage coined the term "computer," a person would physically sit all day adding and subtracting numbers and entering the results into tables.

Charles Babbage, an English polymath, is often referred to as "the man who invented computers." Between 1822 and 1871, he invented three computers, but none of them was ever built due to a lack of funding. The Difference Engine, the first automatic computer, was designed and built by Charles Babbage in 1822. It has the ability to carry out various mathematical operations and deliver tangible copies of the outcomes. With the aid of Ada Lovelace, Babbage developed the Difference Engine. In addition to developing the Difference Engine, Babbage is credited with developing the first computer. Unreasonably, Babbage's shortage of finances prevented him from completing a fully functional prototype of this computer.

Later, in June 1991, Difference Engine No. 2 was completed by the London Science Museum. Later, the printing mechanism was completed by the London Science Museum.

The Analytical Engine, a later Babbage computer design, would have featured a massive 675 bytes of memory. He referred to the CPU as "the mill" and the memory as "the store." Punch cards were used as input and were based on the Jacquard Loom punch card technology, which was developed at the beginning of the 19th century.

In Babbage's time, calculations were mostly performed by human computers, and they were frequently wrong. He believed that mechanical computers could reduce errors.

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Who Invented Computer: Charles Babbage Biography

Charles Babbage, the man who invented the computer, was born on December 26, 1791, the son of London financier Benjamin Babbage. Babbage was well-read in contemporary continental mathematics, and as a young man, he taught himself algebra since he was so passionate about the topic. In 1811, he entered Trinity College in Cambridge and found that his math instructors could not keep up with him. Babbage co-founded the Analytical Society in order to develop continental mathematics and alter the Newtonian mathematics that was being taught in institutions.

In his twenties, Babbage was a mathematician who focused on the calculus of functions.

He was selected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816, and he helped found the Astronomical Society in 1820. (later the Royal Astronomical Society). Babbage's initial interest in computers, which would eventually blossom into a lifetime obsession, began around this time.

Who Invented Computer: Major Highlights

The following table gives you information about the man who invented the computer-

When Did the Term "Computer" First Come into Use?

The word "computer" appears for the first time in The Young Man's Gleanings by Richard Braithwaite, published in 1613. Early computers were not machines at all; rather, they were employees. In 1613, the expression was first used. In reality, the "computers" were mathematicians and bookkeepers who performed intricate computations. The term "computer" was first used to describe a piece of equipment in 1897.

Who Invented Computer: History of Computers

The following gives more information about who invented computers.

The First Computer

The Antikythera mechanism, which dates from 200 BC to 70 BC, is the oldest computer. It is an antique Greek-style mechanical hand-powered device. Archaeologists claim that it was used to calculate eclipses and other astronomical phenomena. The invention, which has been dated variously to between 150 and 100 BC or to 205 BC, is believed to have been created and assembled by Greek scientists. Instead of the machine's real construction date, researchers proposed in 2022 that the machine's initial calibration date would have been December 23, 178 BC. According to some academics, the calibration date should be 204 B.C. Similar complex devices had not been seen before the astronomical clocks of Richard of Wallingford and Giovanni de' Dondi in the fourteenth century.

The Antikythera mechanism was a wooden box that measured 34 cm by 18 cm by 9 cm and had at least 30 gears (13.4 in by 7.1 in by 3.5 in). It was inscribed all over it. Because of how clever it is, many people think that it originated from a number of earlier, simpler species. In the centuries that followed, many clockwork "calculation machines" were created. These frequently had just one use.

Babbage examined the unpublished document with page after page of tables while in the City of Light in 1819. If only, he mused, there were a method to create such tables more quickly, with less labor, and with fewer errors. He considered all the wonders the Industrial Revolution had produced. Why not create the machine that performs computations if inventive and diligent inventors could create the cotton gin and the steam locomotive?

After traveling back to England, Babbage made the decision to construct such a device. His first idea was what he called the Difference Engine, which operated on the idea of finite differences, or the ability to perform repetitive addition of complex mathematical operations rather than multiplication or division. In 1824, he obtained government support and spent eight years refining his concept. He built a working prototype of his table-making device in 1832, only to learn that his funding had run out.

First Machine to Record and Store Information

Herman Hollerith created a mechanism for machines to capture and store data on punch cards known as the "tabulating   The census office was able to save millions of dollars thanks to Hollerith's computer, which was around 10 times faster than manual tabulations. Later, Hollerith would form the organization that is now known as IBM. A tabulating machine would, in its simplest form, read one card at a time, print sections (fields) of the card on fanfold paper, sometimes rearranging them, and add one or more punched numbers to one or more counters, known as accumulators. To retrieve totals on early models, the accumulator register dials had to be manually read after a card run. Later models allowed for the direct printing of totals. Cards with a specific punch could be viewed as master cards and behave differently. 

First Programmable Computer

German Konrad Zuse built the Z1 in his parents' living room between 1936 and 1938. It is regarded as the first functional contemporary computer as well as the first electro-mechanical binary programmable computer.

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First Computer Company

The Electronic Controls Company, established in 1949 by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, was the world's first computer business. Later, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation was used in place of Electronic Controls as the corporate name (EMCC). It also launched a line of mainframe computers under the Univac brand. The ERA 1101 (or UNIVAC 1101) was the first computer to store and run a program from memory and was first made available to the US government later in 1950. Furthermore, on April 7, 1953, IBM publicly unveiled the 701, the first commercial scientific computer.

First Commercially successful Portable Computer

The first portable computer to achieve commercial success was the IBM 5100 in 1975. Although it had a convenient travel case, giving it the label of "portable," you definitely wouldn't want to carry it about all day because it   23 kg (50lbs). The IBM 5100 had a 16-bit processor, supported QIC magnetic tape drives, and allowed users to choose between a white-on-black or black-on-white screen. 

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Who Invented Computer: Charles Babbage and the Mechanical Computer

Computers were humans until Babbage invented computers. Those who spent many hours conducting arithmetic operations, repeating the steps many times, and leaving the results of their calculations documented in tables, which were compiled into priceless volumes, were referred to as this type of person. Other specialists who were tasked with using these results to carry out various tasks, such as artillery officers who determined how to aim the cannons, tax collectors who calculated taxes, and scientists who predicted the tides or the motion of the stars in the heavens, found these tables to be of great assistance.

Because of this, at the end of the 17th century, Napoleon gave Gaspard de Prony (22 July 1755 – 29 July 1839) the ground-breaking task of creating the most accurate logarithmic and trigonometric tables (with between 14 and 29 decimal places), in order to improve and facilitate the astronomical calculations of the Paris Observatory and to be able to unify all the measurements made by the French administration. De Prony had the excellent notion to break down the most complex calculations into simpler mathematical operations that could be completed by less experienced human computers for this enormous undertaking. One of the elements that encouraged English polymath Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) to take the next step was to replace human computers with machines. This method of expediting the process and preventing errors. 

A logical unit to perform arithmetic calculations (the equivalent of a processor or CPU), a control structure with instructions, loops, and conditional branching (like a programming language), and data storage on punch cards (an early version of memory), an idea he borrowed from the Jacquard machine, were all present in Babbage's countless pages of annotations and sketches about the analytical engine. Babbage even considered printing the computations' outcomes using an output device that predated modern printers.

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