Why were computers invented?

In: Inventions, Computer History [Edit categories]

Computers were created to do math for navigation and general calculation purposes. One of the first, if not the first, computational goals was to create tables of logarithms. Collossus, the first electronic computer, was built to crack the German Enigma code used in World War 2.

"The Father of Computers" Charles Babbage who invented the 1st mechanical Computer.. in 1834 he dreamt of designing mechanical calculating machines.

"... I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society, at Cambridge, my head leaning forward on the table in a kind of dreamy mood, with a table of logarithms lying open before me. Another member, coming into the room, and seeing me half asleep, called out, "Well, Babbage, what are you dreaming about?" to which I replied "I am thinking that all these tables" (pointing to the logarithms) "might be calculated by machinery. "

Another Englishman Alan Turing the "father of modern computer science" provided an influential formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing Machine in 1936. Of his role in the modern Computer, Time Magazine, in naming Turing one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, states: "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine"Source:

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/turing.html

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ENIAC is an acronym for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer and was fully electronic.

Back in 1939 there was apprehension that the US would eventually be drawn into the War. The US Army and it's Ordnance Dept realized the serious need for firing and bombing tables for the various types of armament as having these tables would improve accuracy and precision. ENIAC's design and construction started in 1943, financed by the US Army, and was complete in February 1946.

The machine itself was considered a behemoth, taking up 680 sq feet, roughly 8 feet tall, 3 ft wide and 80 ft long.

It weighed an estimated whopping 27 tons, containing 17,400 vacuum tubes (as the transistor was decades away from being invented) ENIAC had the capability of performing 5,000 simple addition or subtraction operations between any of them and a source (e.g., another accumulator, or a constant transmitter) every second. And all this was needed just to set up those firing tables!

To help us on our work....

Nobody could possibly say exactly why, but some might say for math, some say for war, some say for entertsinment, and some might even say so that they never get bored. It's mainly for solving problems.

First answer by RJhooker. Last edit by 1explode1. Contributor trust: 0 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 357 [recommend question]

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