when was computer discovered and who did it?
398053
Originally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations under the direction of a mathematician, possibly with the aid of a variety of mechanical calculating devices such as the abacus onward. Examples of early calculating devices, the first ancestors of the computer, included the abacus and the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek device for calculating the movements of planets, dating from about 87 BCE.[1] The end of the Middle Ages saw a reinvigoration of European mathematics and engineering, and Wilhelm Schickard's 1623 device was the first of a number of European engineers to construct a mechanical calculator.[2]\n\nCharles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable computer as early as 1820, but due to a combination of the limits of the technology of the time, limited finance, and an inability to resist tinkering with his design, the device was never actually constructed in his lifetime. A number of technologies that would later prove useful in computing, such as the punch card and the vacuum tube had appeared by the end of the 19th century, and large-scale automated data processing using punch cards was performed by tabulating machines designed by Hermann Hollerith.\n\nDuring the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated, special-purpose analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. These became increasingly rare after the development of the programmable digital computer.\n\nA succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features of modern computers, such as the use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937)[3] and more flexible programmability. Defining one point along this road as "the first computer" is exceedingly difficult. Notable achievements include the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1937), a special-purpose machine that used valve-driven (vacuum tube) computation, binary numbers, and regenerative memory; the secret British Colossus computer (1944), which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of valves could be made reliable and reprogrammed electronically; the American ENIAC (1946) — which was the first really general purpose machine, but still used the decimal system and had an inflexible architecture that meant reprogramming it essentially required it to be rewired, and Konrad Zuse's Z machines, with the electromechanical Z3 (1941) being the first working machine featuring automatic binary arithmetic and feasible programability.\n\nThe team who developed ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible and elegant design, which has become known as the stored program architecture, which is the basis from which virtually all modern computers were derived. A number of projects to develop computers based on the stored program architecture commenced in the late 1940s; the first of these were completed in Britain. The first to be up and running was the Small-Scale Experimental Machine, but the EDSAC was perhaps the first practical version that was developed.\n\n \nThe Apple II, an early personal computerValve-driven computer designs were in use throughout the 1950s, but were eventually replaced with transistor-based computers, which were smaller, faster, cheaper, and much more reliable, thus allowing them to be commercially produced, in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the adoption of integrated circuit technology had enabled computers to be produced at a low enough cost to allow individuals to own a personal computer of the type familiar today.\n\n[edit]\nHow computers work: the stored program architecture\nWhile the technologies used in computers have changed dramatically since the first electronic, general-purpose, computers of the 1940s, most st
9050
Charles Babbage, It was his initiative of the differential engine which led to the evolution of computer. For this reason, he's considered the father of computing.
904950
the personal computer (PC) didn't come about until about 1970.  Before that computers where to big and costly to have in the home.  the first programmable did appear until 1941 in germany, and the U.S. didn't develope one until 1948.
778906
See refs below.  These are the only pictures I could find.  I don't think he invented any computers but contributed components to the development of missile guidance technology which included a small guidance computer.
304168
Pretty good history at Wikipedia.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_computer
1128890
The HP 9830, introduced in 1972, was the first desktop all-in-one computer. It even had BASIC in ROM, but few people know about it because HP marketed it primarily to scientists and engineers, very quiet people. \nEven earlier (1968), HP produced a similar desktop machine called the 9100. However, since it didn't have a full alphanumeric keyboard or display, it is generally considered a sophisticated programmable calculator rather than a general-purpose computer. According to one researcher, the term personal computer was first used to describe the 9100A. \n\nthe Kenbak was designed by John Blankenbaker, introduced in 1971 and sold through small ads in magazines like Scientific American. It was affordable and small, but far from the first. \nThis otherwise obscure machine was named "first personal computer" by a smart group of judges under the auspices of a contest held by The Computer Museum in Boston in 1986. \n\nThe GENIAC, designed by Edmund C. Berkeley in 1955, and sold by both Berkeley Enterprises and several distributors was small, affordable, digital, and user-programmable. It couldn't do much, but you can't get much more personal than the GENIAC. \nThomas Haddock calls the GENIAC the first personal computer in his "Collector's Guide...". A GENIAC Poem \nHow the GENIAC works \n Tic-Tac-Toe \nNim \nAdding machine \nBinary to decimal \n \nThe GENIAC was the first of several similar machines designed and sold by Berkeley: \n\nGeniac = Genius Almost-Automatic Computer \nTyniac = Tiny Almost-Automatic Computer \nWeeniac = Weeny Almost-Automatic Computer (only 60 made) \nBrainiac = Brain-Imitating Almost-Automatic Computer \nEdmund Berkeley first described Simon in his 1949 book, "Giant Brains, or Machines That Think" and went on to publish plans to build Simon in a series of Radio Electronics issues in 1950 and 1951. \nSimon touched such pioneering computer scientists as Ivan Sutherland, who went on to influence development of interactive graphical personal computers. \n\n\n1950 Simon FAQ \n1956 Berkeley Enterprises Report \n1956 Berkeley Enterprises Memo \nEdmund C. Berkeley Timeline \nBy 1959, over 400 Simon plans were sold.
139291
It was not 'discovered'. Bill Gates went to school, and they had some huge computers there. The students messed with them, and programmed with punchcards. Bill excelled in it, and everyone asked him questions about it. He got hired to make a traffic counting machine with a friend. The friend died, and Bill picked up the project with Paul Allen. They did other things, and eventually created the DOS operating system and sold it to IBM. They later created Microsoft, and bought back the rights for their DOS and started distibuting DOS to everyone. DOS grew over time, and GUIs were formed, and Microsoft became a giant.
265032
Popular computer lore gives this credit to Admiral Grace Hopper, an early computing pioneer:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper\n\nCheck out the picture here:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H96566k.jpg\n\nIt may or may not be true, but it is usally attributed as the first "bug".
567674
Blaise Pascal? He invented the calculator. Maybe Isaac Newton, the inventor of calculus, or Charles Babbage, the inventor of the computer. Perhaps John Napier, who discovered how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and even extract square roots simply by moving pieces on a chessboard? Tell you what, pick René Descartes, he's the inventor of coordinate geometry. These are all excellent choices!
877614
I  INTRODUCTION \nComputer, machine that performs tasks, such as calculations or electronic communication, under the control of a set of instructions called a program. Programs usually reside within the computer and are retrieved and processed by the computer’s electronics. The program results are stored or routed to output devices, such as video display monitors or printers. Computers perform a wide variety of activities reliably, accurately, and quickly.\n\nHISTORY\nA. Beginnings\nThe history of computing began with an analog machine. In 1623 German scientist Wilhelm Schikard invented a machine that used 11 complete and 6 incomplete sprocketed wheels that could add, and with the aid of logarithm tables, multiply and divide.\n\nFrench philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal invented a machine in 1642 that added and subtracted, automatically carrying and borrowing digits from column to column. Pascal built 50 copies of his machine, but most served as curiosities in parlors of the wealthy. Seventeenth-century German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz designed a special gearing system to enable multiplication on Pascal’s machine.\n\nB  First Punch Cards \nIn the early 19th century French inventor Joseph-Marie Jacquard devised a specialized type of computer: a silk loom. Jacquard’s loom used punched cards to program patterns that helped the loom create woven fabrics. Although Jacquard was rewarded and admired by French emperor Napoleon I for his work, he fled for his life from the city of Lyon pursued by weavers who feared their jobs were in jeopardy due to Jacquard’s invention. The loom prevailed, however: When Jacquard died, more than 30,000 of his looms existed in Lyon. The looms are still used today, especially in the manufacture of fine furniture fabrics.\n\nC  Precursor to Modern Computer \nAnother early mechanical computer was the Difference Engine, designed in the early 1820s by British mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage. Although never completed by Babbage, the Difference Engine was intended to be a machine with a 20-decimal capacity that could solve mathematical problems. Babbage also made plans for another machine, the Analytical Engine, considered the mechanical precursor of the modern computer. The Analytical Engine was designed to perform all arithmetic operations efficiently; however, Babbage’s lack of political skills kept him from obtaining the approval and funds to build it. \n\nAugusta Ada Byron, countess of Lovelace, was a personal friend and student of Babbage. She was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron and one of only a few woman mathematicians of her time. She prepared extensive notes concerning Babbage’s ideas and the Analytical Engine. Lovelace’s conceptual programs for the machine led to the naming of a programming language (Ada) in her honor. Although the Analytical Engine was never built, its key concepts, such as the capacity to store instructions, the use of punched cards as a primitive memory, and the ability to print, can be found in many modern computers.\n\nXII  DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 20TH CENTURY \n\nA  Early Electronic Calculators \n\nHerman Hollerith, an American inventor, used an idea similar to Jacquard’s loom when he combined the use of punched cards with devices that created and electronically read the cards. Hollerith’s tabulator was used for the 1890 U.S. census, and it made the computational time three to four times shorter than the time previously needed for hand counts. Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company eventually merged with two companies to form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. In 1924 the company changed its name to International Business Machines (IBM).\n\nIn 1936 British mathematician Alan Turing proposed the idea of a machine that could process equations without human direction. The machine (now known as a Turing machine) resembled an automatic typewriter that used symbols for math and logic instead of letters. Turin
310498
do u know COMPUTER stands for--\n\nCommonly Operated Machine Performed and Used for Technical Education and Research.\n\nNot many people know this.
623130
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the world's first electronic digital computer. It was built by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937-42. It incorporated several major innovations in computing including the use of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, parallel processing, and separation of memory and computing functions. \nOn October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision following a lengthy court trial which declared the ENIAC patent of Mauchly and Eckert invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer -- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC. \n\nClark Mollenhoff in his book, Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer, details the design and construction of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer with emphasis on the relationships of the individuals. Alice and Arthur Burks in their book, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story, describe the design and construction of the ABC and provide a more technical perspective. Numerous articles provide additional information. In recognition of his achievement, Atanasoff was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President George Bush at the White house on November 13, 1990.
491304
the first computer was made by an english man called charles babbage in the 1800s. it was like a calculater and was the size of a house. \nt
254096
I don't think this movie will have the answer you are looking for, but if you are interested in the history of home computer software, Specifically the history of Microsoft and Apple "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" was pretty interesting :)
1084781
Origins of the Internet\nThe first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA, 4 starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA, Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of the importance of this networking concept.\n\nLeonard Kleinrock at MIT published the first paper on packet switching theory in July 1961 and the first book on the subject in 1964. Kleinrock convinced Roberts of the theoretical feasibility of communications using packets rather than circuits, which was a major step along the path towards computer networking. The other key step was to make the computers talk together. To explore this, in 1965 working with Thomas Merrill, Roberts connected the TX-2 computer in Mass. to the Q-32 in California with a low speed dial-up telephone line creating the first (however small) wide-area computer network ever built. The result of this experiment was the realization that the time-shared computers could work well together, running programs and retrieving data as necessary on the remote machine, but that the circuit switched telephone system was totally inadequate for the job. Kleinrock's conviction of the need for packet switching was confirmed.\n\nIn late 1966 Roberts went to DARPA to develop the computer network concept and quickly put together his plan for the "ARPANET", publishing it in 1967. At the conference where he presented the paper, there was also a paper on a packet network concept from the UK by Donald Davies and Roger Scantlebury of NPL. Scantlebury told Roberts about the NPL work as well as that of Paul Baran and others at RAND. The RAND group had written a paper on packet switching networks for secure voice in the military in 1964. It happened that the work at MIT (1961-1967), at RAND (1962-1965), and at NPL (1964-1967) had all proceeded in parallel without any of the researchers knowing about the other work. The word "packet" was adopted from the work at NPL and the proposed line speed to be used in the ARPANET design was upgraded from 2.4 kbps to 50 kbps. 5\n\nIn August 1968, after Roberts and the DARPA funded community had refined the overall structure and specifications for the ARPANET, an RFQ was released by DARPA for the development of one of the key components, the packet switches called Interface Message Processors (IMP's). The RFQ was won in December 1968 by a group headed by Frank Heart at Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN). As the BBN team worked on the IMP's with Bob Kahn playing a major role in the overall ARPANET architectural design, the network topology and economics were designed and optimized by Roberts working with Howard Frank and his team at Network Analysis Corporation, and the network measurement system was prepared by Kleinrock's team at UCLA. 6\n\nDue to Kleinrock's early development of packet switching theory and his focus on analysis, design and measurement, his Network Measurement Center at UCLA was selected to be the first node on the ARPANET. All this came together in September 1969 when BBN installed the first IMP at UCLA and the first host computer was connected. Doug Engelbart's project on "Augmentation of Human Intellect" (which included NLS, an early hypertext system) at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) provided a second node. SRI supported the Network Information Center, led by Elizabeth (Jake) Feinler and including functions such as maintaining tables of host name to address mapping as well as a directory of the RFC's. One month
850685
Here you go\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing\n\n///
157381
That depends on what you mean by "computer".  The basis of any computing machine is the ability to do input, processing and output.  The core of what makes it a computer is to handle "whatif" questions and to respond differently based on the answer to those questions.  For example, to say, "If the dollar amount is less than X then do this, but if it's greater than X then do that.\n\nBy that definition, the first true computer would probably be Charles Babbage's "Difference Engine" built in the late 1800s.  An improved version, which he called the "Analytical Engine" actually accepted punch card programs, the first of which was written by Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace, making her the world's first computer programmer.\n\nThe first truly modern electronic computer was, arguably, the ENIAC developed for the US Army by the University of Pennsylvania.  I say "arguably" because it depends on which features you want to include in the definition of "modern electronic computer."  For example, the ENIAC had no stored memory and had to be rewired for each program.\n\nHope this helps.