The computer, when was it invented?

Brainyblonde

Seldom, if ever, in the history of technology has so long an interval separated the invention of a device and its realisation in hardware as that which elapsed between Charles Babbage's description, in 1837, of the Analytical Engine, a mechanical digital computer which, viewed with the benefit of a century and a half's hindsight, anticipated virtually every aspect of present-day computers. http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/ Who invented the computer?" and when is not a question with a simple answer. The real answer is that many inventors contributed to the history of computers and that a computer is a complex piece of machinery made up of many parts, each of which can be considered a separate invention. 1951 - First commercial computer & able to pick presidential winners. You can find a timeline here: http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm Jul 10 06, 9:44 AM

zbeckabee

Originally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical calculations, often with the aid of a mechanical calculating device or analog computer. Examples of these early devices, the 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 BC.[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] The abacus has been noted as being an early computer, as it was like a calculator in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer Charles 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. (same link) Jul 10 06, 10:29 AM

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