>>I'd give the honours of 1st computer to the Zuse Z1 - a relay machine
>>between the Wars, I think. But some mechanical calculators at that date
>>were quite sophisticated. Comments, anyone??
> Well, I'd give computer credit to Babage's machine, ca. 1896, IIRC. He is,
> after all the one who coined the phrase "computer."
Babbage died 1871 :)
The Analytical Machine was never build and had never worked.
Even the 1991 'replica' of the National Museum of Science
and Technology in London was only build after his plans
_and_ additions 'known' at this time.
A neat (english) description of the Z1 and Z3 could be found at
http://www.zib.de/prospekt/zuse/zusez1z3.html
(Hard code documentation) or
http://bang.lanl.gov/video/sunedu/computer/z1z4.html
(soft :)
The first programable general purpose computer is for shure
the Z1. And the first electronic computer is the Z3 since
the Z1 was just mechanical. Also both are the first binary
floating point computers (Babage used decimal wheels).
Servus
H.
P.S.: The first calculatin machine might be the one of
Wilhelm Schickard from 1623.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
Received on Thu Jun 18 1998 - 14:42:06 BST