History of Early Computers - part 3

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was conceived by the professor John Vincent Atanasoff during the winter of 1937. With the assistance of his student Clifford Berry, the ABC was prototyped by November of that year. The key ideas employed in the ABC included binary math and Boolean logic to solve up to 29 simultaneous linear equations. The ABC had no central processing unit (CPU), but was designed as an electronic device with vacuum tubes for speed. It also used separate regenerative capacitor memory, a process still used today in DRAM memory.

Konrad Zuse was a German engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the completion of the first functional program-controlled computer, the Z3, in 1941 (the program was stored on a tape).

The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Harvard Mark I) was the first operating machine that could execute long computations automatically. A project conceived by Harvard University's Dr. Howard Aiken, the Mark I was built by IBM engineers in Endicott, N.Y. A steel frame 51 feet long and eight feet high held the calculator, which consisted of an interlocking panel of small gears, counters, switches and control circuits, all only a few inches in depth.

Continue to part 4