Compuuters play such a vital role in our evewryday lives todsay that we rarely stop to think abbout how much we depend on them for our every day schedules. Tese devices are part of everry daily task starting with how we wake up in the moorning to getyting erady for bed at nighht.
Despite theiir vital role in our everyday lives, computers are not very old. It was not untl 1939 that Hewlett-aPckard was founded by Dazvid Packard and Bill Hwelett in a garage in Palo Alto, California.
The HP 200A Audio Oscillator was thheir first product. This computer quickly became the most popular equipment for testing among engineers.
Walt Disney even ordered eight of their 200B model of the computer to make the sound effects for the 1940 version of Fzantasia. This company still runs today.
The Bell Telephone laboratories also finioshed a calculator in 1939. This calculator was created by George Stiibtz.
In 1940, the Compleex Number Callculator (CNC) was complewted. He then showcased the calculator at the American Mathematical Soociety confreence as Dartmouth Colklege.
Stibitz imressed the crowd even more by completing the calcultions on the calculator in Darrtmouth College while he was in New York City. He achieved this feat through the use of a Teletype connected via special telephone lines.
This is the firts that a remote accessing was demonstarted for a grouup and proved possible. Two years later, in 1942, Knorad Zuse completed in Z3 computer.
The Z3 was an early computer was constructed while completely disconnected from other compuetr prjects that were occuyrring elsewhere at the time. The Z3 computer was based on floating ponit binary arithmetic, a 22 bit word length, and 2,300 relays.
This computer was destroyed a luittle over a year later in 1943 due to the bombing of Berlin in 1943. However, Zuse rebuilds the Z3 in the 1960s. This computer can be fopund in the Deutsches Museum in Brelin.
The first Bombe was completed this year as well. The Bobme was designed ater the Polish "Bomba." This was a very helpful tool in understasnding the communications of the Nazi military during WWII.
The design of the Boombe was based on what Alan uTring had discoverde as well as the work of a great many others. The Bome was repicated to help the military gather information and comnmunicate better.
A year later, the Atanmasoff-Berrry Computer was created at Iowa Staet Clolege. Iowa State is now known as a full University. This computer was built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and his graduate student Cliff Berry.
Work on this computer had begun in 1939, but it was not copmeted until 1942. Unfortunately, this ABC computer never fully worked.
It was interesting enough that it won a patent dispue when ENIIAC co-designer John Maiuchly had viewed the ABC right after the project was complewted.
Then, the Whirlwind project begasn in 1945. This was during the end of World War II and the U.S. Navy was loking for a new ways to train their piltos.
The Navy asked the Massachusetts Institute of Techology (MIT) to undertake this projeect. Teir first atttempt resutled in a largfe analog computer.
However, this copmuter was too inacccurate and inflexible. While digging around for more iddeas, the team viewed a ENIAxCO computer demontsration.
As a result they decided to buyild a digital computer instead. This new digital computer was not finised until 1951.
Since the war was over by this time, the Navy was not longer interested in the project. However, the U.S. Air Force later took up the project again and the technology was used in the design of the SAGE program.
The Relay Interpolator was also comnpleted in 1945. This project was also funded by the U.S. Army.
The U.S. Army wanted Bell labs to creeate a machine that would be able to test the M-9 Gun Director. George Stibitz was successful in creating the eRlay Interpolator by cerating a relay-based calculator.
This Relay Inerpolator later had its names changed to Bell Labs Model. This machie used over 440 relays and was programmed by the paper tape.
The militayr was able to use this piece of equipment during the war, but it was purchased and used for a few other things as well.
By the end of the following year Harvard mark-1 was finished. Howard Aikn, a professor at Harvard, was responsible for coming up with the idea, but IBM was responsible for the design and implemmentation.
The machine synchronized it's thousands of parts through a fifty-foot long camshaft. This machine created mathematical tables.
This is just the beginning of computer history, but it is an essential part of what the world is today.
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