Re: HIT: Names of the Worlds First Computers

[Diane Oestreich <doestre@CELLO.GINA.CALSTATE.EDU>]

What about Colossus, built during WWII by Alan Turing and colleagues to
help decode the German Enigma encoder?  According to *The Experience of
World War II* p. 128, Colossus was "effectively the world's first computer."

Diane Oestreich
Fullerton High School
Fullerton, CA
doestre@cello.gina.calstate.edu


On Tue, 4 Apr 1995, Kevin J. Sinclair wrote:

> (1) From wrs@Tymnet.COM
>
> The ENIAC was the first electronic computer.  It was built in 1946
> at the Univeristy of Pennsylvania.  It was good for 0.005 MIPS
> (5,000 integer additions per second).
>
> I don't know about the others.  The name MINIAC sticks in my mind
> but I can't find a reference to it.
>
> (2) From richard@foxtrot.rahul.net
>
> When I was in high school (about 1957) there was a book called "Let ERMA
> do it" (my best recollection).
>
> Of course the UNIVAC I was the first commercial computer.
>
> (3) From PEARSONN@TEN-NASH.TEN.K12.TN.US
>
> Early computer names
>         1.      ERMA = Electronic Recording Machine-Accounting.  Erma was
>                 built by Stanford in California for use in banking.
>         2.      AUDREY = invented by Bell Telephone Laboratories to
>                 understand the human voice.
>         3.      SAGE = helped to guard against enemy attack in case of war.
>         4.      TALOS = sent up missiles to fight enemy planes.
>
> (4) From david@dhw.vip.best.com
>
> Well, I'm not sure where it fit chronologically, but since it is my
> understanding that John von Neumann was responsible for the name, I
> expect is was fairly early (as such things go):
>
> Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator And Computer: MANIAC
>
> (5) From rssmith@tenet.edu
>
>    The Mark I was the first main frame computer, built in 1944 by a team
> of computer researchers led by a former Harvard math professor, Howard
> Aiken. The Mark I had 750,000 parts and 500 miles of wiring. It weighed
> five tones and stood 8 foot tall, 51 feet in length, and 2 feet in depth.
> It could multiply two 23-digit numbers in four seconds, making it the
> fastest calculator ever invented.
>
>     The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator) arrived
> two years later (1946) and it was also huge (filled an entire room). The
> inventors, J Presper Eckert and John Mauchly went on to create one of the
> first commercial companies, UNIVAC in 1951. UNIVAC (Universal Automatic
> Computer) was the first commercial computer.
>