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Computers have been around for a very, very long time. But the definition of what makes something a computer has changed a great deal. And the progress made on developing computers was made by many many people, not just one "inventor". There are many people out there who would say that the first "computer" was the abacus, invented in Asia about 5000 years ago. But somehow I doubt that this is what you're looking for, so let's look a little more recently... As time went on, there were a number of special devices invented to help with things like tax collecting, taking the census, etc. At first, these were purely mechanical, but by the start of the twentieth century, they were run by steam. The first of the "modern" computers was invented during World War II, in 1941 by a German engineer named Konrad Zuse. The computer was called the Z3 and was used to help design German airplanes and missles. A couple years later, in 1943, the Allied forces developed a computer called Colossus to help decode German messages. But since the Z3 was developed by the side that lost the war and Colossus stayed a military secret for many years, these computers didn't contribute much to the ones that came next. Independent of the Colossus project, the next computer was the Mark I, designed by Howard H. Aiken, an engineer working with Harvard and IBM. The Mark I was positively huge, taking up half of a football field, but it helped to create ballistic charts for the US Navy during the war. Shortly after this, though, came the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), developed by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, working with the government and the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC was a lot like the Mark I, except that it ran about 1000 times faster. Moving along, there were other computers like EDVAC (1945), UNIVAC I (1951), etc. But all these computers had something in common with the older computers - they were designed for a specific purpose and couldn't really be used for anything else. They also all worked by using vacuum tubes, which is what made them take up so much space. The invention of the transistor in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs made the big difference from here. Using transistors, computers came around that could store memory and even run programs. Soon they even had computer languages so that people could change the programs run by the computer when they wanted to. After a while, the focus on computer research came to be on making them smaller, giving us the kinds of computers that we have today. For some great resources with a lot more detailed information, check out these links: Computers: History and Development - Lots of information starting all the way back in Asia all the way

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15y ago
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15y ago

Like a lot of technology, the first application for the first fully digital computer ENIAC was used for military purposes. It was used to calculate elevations for large guns on ship to shore campaigns.

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15y ago

Depending on your definition, it is hard to pinpoint exactly when and where computers began, mechanical computers have been found as far back in history as the Roman Empire.

The first practical use of an electronic computer may have been the colossus computer at the Bletchley Park cryptanalysis center during World War Two. The colossus computer was used to decypher Nazi Germanys enigma encryption system. Thanks to this computer, the allies were able to reliably intercept and decode Nazi communications resulting in an instrumental strategic advantage. Many have postulated that without the efforts of the technicians at Bletchley Park, the war may have stretched on a further five years or more and may have turned the tables of victory in favor of the Nazis.

After the war, the equipment and designs at Bletchley remained top secret, and much of it was destroyed. The technicians who built and used the colossus were not permitted to discuss their vital role in the war effort until decades later.

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12y ago

computers were invented in England during world war II originally were used to try and crack German codes

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14y ago

Computers were originally used to perform large calculations in a short amount of time, whereas a human would use much longer time.

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12y ago

1951

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11y ago

1982

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14y ago

mathematics

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Q: When was the word computer used for the first time?
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