Computer History

The first programmable computer

The Z1 originally created by Konrad Zuse in Germany in the living room of his parents in 1936 to 1938 is considered the first electrical binary programmable computer.

The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to develop until 1942 at the State University of Iowa (now Iowa State University). On October 19, 1973, USA Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer.

ENIACThe ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was completed in 1946. Which occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the judge ruled that the ABC team was the first digital computer many still consider the ENIAC as the first digital computer.
Since the judge's decision, and because the case was appealed like most we consider the ABC to be the first digital computer. Since the ABC never fully functional we consider the first functional digital computer to the ENIAC.

The First Computer Microprocessor 
 

In November 1971, opened a company called Intel introduced the first single chip microprocessor, Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent # 3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor and. After the invention of integrated circuits revolutionized computer design, the only place to go is down - in size, that is. Intel 4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by putting all the parts that make a computer think (ie central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on a small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects are now possible.