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So...Who actually invented the FIRST computer? Let’s take a stroll down memory lane...
Well (not to sound like a lawyer) it depends on how you define computer. For example, back in 2700 - 2300 B.C. the Sumerians invented the abacus, a handheld “machine” (still in existence today) which uses beads set into tables of successive columns which are then used to delimit successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal (base-60) number system. It was mechanical, not electric or electronic. You asked.
Next came electronic machines such as the Victor calculator and the Monroe, an advanced programmable calculator which had a carriage like a typewriter, capable of solving simple equations [see below] followed.
After that, computers evolved in the 1940s into electronic machines which did more than just calculate - they performed mathematical calculations and other actions that were generally far too time consuming or complex for humans.
Perhaps the ENIAC (short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the first general-purpose, electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. ENIAC was originally designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research laboratory, but its first actual use was in calculations for the hydrogen bomb. When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. But it was huge, taking up its own building at 30 tons and 18,000 vacuum tubes (see also Bartik).
Modern computers don’t take up an entire building and ushered in the age of far smaller computers. In this sense, the first “electronic” computer was actually invented back in 1973 by John Atanasoff and it was a scientific, not a personal computer [see below]. This according to the U.S. court system as documented in the book “The Man Who Invented the Computer” by Jane Smiley (2010).
In the next forty years, the computer steadily got smaller and more powerful, reaching the age of the PC (“Personal Computer”) in the 1980s. There are lots of claims to the inventor of the first PC. Contrary to popular belief, the PC was not invented by Bill Gates (who invented Windows, a graphic software interface which made computers easier to use) or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (1976) (who invented the first true “personal” computer, which used a mouse and a graphic user interface to make the entire process easier to use for non-scientists), although some have credited them. Also credited have been the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center’s ALTO computer (1972) and even IBM (1991). Many more people credit H. Edward Roberts, a mentor of Bill Gates, who wrote the Basic programming language which actually ran the Altair (1975). The actual patent for a PC was issued in the U.S. on July 25, 1972 to Jack Frassanito, who in 1968 invented a self-contained unit with its own processor, display, keyboard, internal memory and mass storage of data. It was named the Datapoint 2200, cost about $5000 and had up to 8,000 bytes of internal storage with another 300,000 bytes on 2 casette tapes. Who knew?
In the 2000s, computers became even smaller, as “smart” cellular phones such as the iPhone and the Droid allowed the installation of various downloadable “apps,” actually programs which used to be executed on full-scale computers, now used over the Internet and shared with other cell phone users.
In short, it all depends on what you define as a computer. And, even then, there’s no agreement. After I reseached this, I found an even more subdivided series of definitions HERE.
For more milestones, see below:
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