Computer history
Until pretty recently, a “computer” was a person who did math, often in a room full of other “computers.” This was particularly true for things that needed a lot of computation, such as tallying up the U.S. Census or finding the settings for artillery in the military.
Historical note: Did you notice that all these "computers" were women? That was because women were thought to be better able to concentrate and perform repetitive computations than men. Later those stereotypes changed, and we're still working on balancing representation of all groups in technology fields. We'll talk about some of the reasons why this is super important later on.
Charles Babbage and the Analytical Engine
There were also mechanical computers, which were machines that could do different kinds of math. Each mechanical computer could do only one kind of thing, though. They are not considered computers in the modern sense, because they could not be programmed to do different kinds of operations. Until Charles Babbage came up with his Analytical Engine, that is. The Analytical Engine was capable of doing a lot of calculations really fast. More importantly, it could be programmed to do different kinds of calculations. Or, at least, it might have been able to. It was never built, because the precise engineering required to make it was too expensive. Still, he often gets the credit for the first programmable computer.
Ada Lovelace and the first computer program
In spite of the fact that the physical Analytical Engine was never actually made, there WERE programs for it. Lady Ada Lovelace wrote code that could run on the machine, and had a vision for further programs that could even create music and art! Ada Lovelace is widely considered the first computer programmer. It was more than a hundred years before the world caught up with her vision.
Electronic computers started to appear in the 1940s, largely to handle wartime issues like weather prediction, ballistics, and code breaking. Much of this work was secret, but by the 1950s there were a number of different computers around. They were very large, and each one was unique, requiring different programs and engineers who knew the systems very well. There was no such thing as a “computer programmer” in those days. If you had access to a computer, you had to learn to make your own programs for it. Two contenders for the first digital electronic computer are Colossus and ENIAC, pictured below.
Colossus (1943)
Colossus was a computer built by the British during World War II in order to help with breaking secret German codes. It is generally considered the world's first programmable electronic digital computer. Notice the long lines of paper tape on the right side of the photo. That is how information was fed into the computer.
ENIAC (1945)
ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was first electronic general-purpose digital computer. It improved on the Colossus in that it could store it's own programs, and (relatively) quickly switch its programming. ENIAC filled a room that was 30 by 60 feet, weighed 30 tons, and contained 19,000 vacuum tubes. It was originally created to make artillery calculations and determine the feasibility of the atomic bomb. It could calculate a trajectory in 30 seconds that took a human 20 hours!
Desktop computers
By the 1970s, “personal computers” were being produced. These were small enough and cheap enough that some families could have their own. Businesses started using computers, too, to keep track of their business. This led to very fast advances in both hardware and programming. There were a few really popular models. Try asking your parents or grandparents what their first computer was!
