What was the first computer?
The answer depends on the definition. Charles Babbage designed the first mechanical computer in the 1830s, while ENIAC, finished in 1945, is often called the first general-purpose electronic computer.
English mathematician Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine in the 1830s, a mechanical machine that could be programmed using punched cards. It was never completed, but Ada Lovelace wrote what is considered the first computer program for it. Earlier machines, like the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, could calculate astronomical positions.
In the 1940s, several electronic computers appeared. Konrad Zuse's Z3 in Germany, from 1941, was programmable. Colossus, built in Britain in 1943 and 1944, helped break German codes. ENIAC, completed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, weighed about 27 tonnes and used around 18,000 vacuum tubes.
Computers get personal
Transistors and microchips made computers smaller and cheaper. The Altair 8800 in 1975 sparked the personal computer revolution, followed by the Apple II in 1977 and the IBM PC in 1981. Today's smartphones are millions of times more powerful than ENIAC.
Did You Know?
The word computer originally meant a person who did calculations. Teams of human computers, often women, did complex math for science and the military.