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The first freely programmable computer is created.
In 1936, a German construction engineer working for the Henschel Aircraft Company in Berlin, created the Z1, a mechanical calculator that was the first binary computer. -
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the First Electronic Computer
In 1942, Professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry build the very first electronic-digital computer At Iowa State University. The computer represented several innovations in computing, which included a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions. -
The Harvard Mark 1 Computer is Created
In 1944, Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper design the Mark 1. The giant computer was the first computer in the "Mark" series, and weighed 5 tons and had almost 760,000 separate parts. -
The ENIAC I Computer is created
In 1946, John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert Develop the ENIAC I (Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator). The ENIAC I was created and developed as an American Military sponsored project, as the military required a computer that calculated artillery-firing tables. -
The Transistor
While the computer Transistor may not be very big, it became an influencial invention that changed the course of history for computers and electronics alike. Transistors made of semiconductors replaced tubes as the computers were constructed. By replacing the bulky and unreliable vaccum tubes that were previously in computers and replacing them with transistors, the computers could perform the same functions, while using less power and space. -
The Manchester Mark 1 is created
In 1948, Tom Kilburn, assisted by fellow TRE researcher Geoff Tootill, worked on designing and building a prototype machine, which they nicknamed "The Baby". The new computer demonstrated the ability of the Williams Tube. This was also the first computer in history that used a storage program.