• Question: How was the first computer invented?

    Asked by anon-223754 to Valerio, Sreejita, Sam, Kate, Anastasia, Adam on 20 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Adam Wootton

      Adam Wootton answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      Excellent question! I love history, and there are a few contenders for this. Some people recognise the first computer as Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine from 1834. This was a programmable machine that could perform mathematical operations, supposedly inspired by how unreliable hand calculation of logarithms were. We leave that to calculators these days! Other people think that the American computer, ENIAC, was the first. However, the British scientist Tommy Flowers came up with a programmable computer during the Second World War called Colossus, but this was kept secret until the 1970s, so not a lot of people knew about it!

      There’s a much more detailed answer available at this link:
      https://community.cadence.com/cadence_blogs_8/b/breakfast-bytes/posts/edsac

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