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Three brothers who wrote the Book of Ingenious Devices, describing what appears to be the first programmable machine, an automatic flute player. [8] 1960–1964 Baran, Paul: One of two independent inventors of the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet.
Analog computers had an advantage over early digital computers in that they could be used to solve complex problems using behavioral analogues while the earliest attempts at digital computers were quite limited. A Smith Chart is a well-known nomogram.
The category of early computers contains the computer systems made in the early era (i.e., the era in modern computer history defined as the period from the late 1930s to the early 1960s) utilizing mechanical, vacuum tube, discrete transistor, or other pre-integrated circuit technology. See also. Category:History of computing
Digital machinery used difference engines or relays before the invention of faster memory devices. The phrase computing machine gradually gave way, after the late 1940s, to just computer as the onset of electronic digital machinery became common. These computers were able to perform the calculations that were performed by the previous human clerks.
The steam-powered automatic flute described by the Book of Ingenious Devices (850) by the Persian-Baghdadi Banū Mūsā brothers may have been the first programmable device. [10] Other early mechanical devices used to perform one or another type of calculations include the planisphere and other mechanical computing devices invented by Al-Biruni ...
Heath Robinson is the name of a British cartoonist known for drawings of comical machines, like the American Rube Goldberg. Two later machines in the series were named after London stores with 'Robinson' in their names. 1943 Sep United States: Williams and Stibitz completed the 'Relay Interpolator', later called the 'Model II Relay Calculator ...
Early British Computers. Digital Press (US), Manchester University Press (UK). ISBN 0-932376-08-8. Wilkes, Maurice (1985). Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer. MIT Press. Williams, M. R.; Campbell-Kelly, Martin (1989). The Early British Computer Conferences. Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing. Vol. 14. MIT Press.
An early commercial computer. IBM 305 RAMAC: 1956 >1,000: The first commercial computer to use a moving-head hard-disk drive for secondary storage. Bendix G-15: 1956 >400: A small computer for scientific and industrial purposes by the Bendix Corporation. It had a total of about 450 tubes (mostly dual triodes) and 300 germanium diodes. LGP-30: ...