Atanasoff-Berry Computer Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

ATANASOFF-BERRY COMPUTER
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), an early digital

computer. It was generally believed that the first electronic
digital computers were the Colossus, built in England in 1943,
and the ENIAC, built in the United States in 1945. However,
the first special-purpose electronic computer may actually
have been invented by John Vincent Atanasoff, a physicist and
mathematician at Iowa State College (now Iowa State
University), during 1937–42. (Atanasoff also claimed to have
invented the term analog computerto describe machines such
as Vannevar Bush’s Differential Analyzer.) Together with his
graduate assistant Clifford E. Berry, Atanasoff built a
successful small prototype in 1939 for the purpose of testing
two ideas central to his design: capacitors to store data
in binary form and electronic logiccircuits to perform addition
and subtraction. They then began the design and construction
of a larger, more general-purpose computer, known as the
Atanasoff-Berry Computer or the ABC.
Z1
The Z1 was a mechanical computer designed by Konrad
Zuse from 1935 to 1936 and built by him from 1936 to
1938. It was a binary electrically driven mechanical calculator
with limited programmability, reading instructions from
punched celluloid film.
The Z1 was the first freely programmable computer in the
world which used Boolean logic and binary floating-point
numbers, however it was unreliable in operation. It was
completed in 1938 and financed completely from private
funds. This computer was destroyed in the bombardment of
Berlin in December 1943, during World War II, together with
all construction plans.
The Z1 was the first in a series of computers that Zuse
designed. Its original name was "V1" for VersuchsModell 1
(meaning Experimental Model 1). After WW2, it was renamed
"Z1" to differentiate from the flying bombs designed
by Robert Lusser. The Z2 and Z3 were follow-ups based on
many of the same ideas as the Z1.
MARK 1
Mark I was designed in 1937 by a Harvard graduate student,
Howard H. Aiken to solve advanced mathematical physics
problems encountered in his research. Aiken’s ambitious
proposal envisioned the use of modified, commercially-
available technologies coordinated by a central control system.
When Mark I was finally delivered to Harvard in 1944, it was
operated by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships for military
purposes, solving mathematical problems that until then
required large teams of human “computers.”
Mark I was in operation between 1944 and 1959, at which
point sections from each of its components were taken to IBM
and the Smithsonian Institution, leaving the smaller version
seen here. The original Mark I was about twice the current
length.
ENIAC I
The first substantial computer was the giant ENIAC machine
by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of
Pennsylvania. ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator and
Calculator) used a word of 10 decimal digits instead of binary
ones like previous automated calculators/computers. ENIAC
was also the first machine to use more than 2,000 vacuum
tubes, using nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes. Storage of all those
vacuum tubes and the machinery required to keep the cool
took up over 167 square meters (1800 square feet) of floor
space. Nonetheless, it had punched-card input and output and
arithmetically had 1 multiplier, 1 divider-square rooter, and 20
adders employing decimal "ring counters," which served as
adders and also as quick-access (0.0002 seconds) read-write
register storage
WILLIAMS TUBE
The Williams tube, or the Williams–Kilburn tube after
inventors Freddie Williams (26 June 1911 – 11
August 1977), and Tom Kilburn (11 August 1921 – 17 January
2001), is an early form of computer memory. It was the
first random-access digital storage device, and was used
successfully in several early computers.
The Williams tube works by displaying a grid of dots on
a cathode ray tube (CRT).
UNIVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) is a line of
electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the
products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later
the name was applied to a division of the Remington
Rand company and successor organizations.
The BINAC, built by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer
Corporation, was the first general-purpose computer for
commercial use. The descendants of the later UNIVAC
1107 continue today as products of the Unisys company.
IBM 701 EDPM

The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as
the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first
commercial scientific computer, which was announced to the
public on April 29, 1952. It was designed by Nathaniel
Rochester and based on the IAS machine at Princeton. Its
successor was the IBM 704, its computer siblings were
the IBM 702 for business, and the lower-cost general-
purpose IBM 650.
COMMODORE PET
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) is a
line of home/personal computers produced starting in 1977
by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and
United States educational markets, it was Commodore's first
full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-
bit product line, including the Commodore 64. The first model,
which was named the PET 2001, was presented to the public at
the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in 1977.
TURING MACHINE
Turing machine, hypothetical computing device introduced in
1936 by the English mathematician and logician Alan M.
Turing. Turing originally conceived the machine as
a mathematical tool that could infallibly recognize undecidable
propositions—i.e., those mathematical statements that, within
a given formal axiom system, cannot be shown to be either
true or false. (The mathematician Kurt Gödel had
demonstrated that such undecidable propositions exist in any
system powerful enough to contain arithmetic.) Turing instead
proved that there can never exist any universal algorithmic
method for determining whether a proposition is undecidable.
PROGRAMMED DATA PROCESSOR

Programmed Data Processor (PDP), referred to by some
customers, media and authors as "Programmable Data
Processor, is a term used by the Digital Equipment
Corporation from 1957 to 1990 for several lines
of minicomputers. The name "PDP" intentionally avoids the
use of the term "computer" because, at the time of the first
PDPs, computers had a reputation of being large, complicated,
and expensive machines, and the venture capitalists behind
Digital (especially Georges Doriot) would not support Digital's
attempting to build a "computer"; the word "minicomputer"
had not yet been coined. So instead, Digital used their existing
line of logic modules to build a Programmed Data
Processor and aimed it at a market that could not afford the
larger computers.
The various PDP machines can generally be grouped into
families based on word length

Atanasoff-Berry Computer Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

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Atanasoff-Berry Computer Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

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ATANASOFF-BERRY COMPUTER

Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), an early digital

IBM 701 EDPM

PROGRAMMED DATA PROCESSOR

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