Early Computer History (RE: who's on first? )

From: Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal_at_MICROSOFT.com>
Date: Wed Jul 2 17:39:43 1997

> ----------
> From: Nick Challoner
> On 1 Jul 97 at 22:45, e.tedeschi wrote:
> > > I would be most interested in hearing peoples' views on where the
> > > Bletchley Park computer (i can't remember its name)
> >
> > Colossus I ?
> Yes! that was it. Thanks Enrico.
>
It was just called Colossus at the time (they ended up building 10 of
them). They're rebuilding one at Bletchley Park.

> Now back to the main question in my
> post: where does this fit in to the timeline of early computers?
>
The following are arguable....

Colossus (1944) was probably the first electronic computer.

ENIAC (1946) was probably the first general-purpose electronic computer,
while Colossus was built strictly to break a German cipher.

Manchester/Harvard Mark 1 (1948) was probably first electronic
stored-program computer.
(ENIAC, though built in '46, was made stored-program in 1948,
complicating matters somewhat)

EDSAC (1949) is sometimes called the first full-scale operational
stored-program computer.

UNIVAC 1 (1952) was probably the first commercial computer.

I haven't been able to find any citations of the first all-solid-state
computer.

Kai
Received on Wed Jul 02 1997 - 17:39:43 BST