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A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952. It was not until the mid-20th century that the word acquired its modern definition; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word computer was in a different sense, in a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard Brathwait: "I haue [] read the truest computer of Times, and the best ...
Eventually, the concept of numbers became concrete and familiar enough for counting to arise, at times with sing-song mnemonics to teach sequences to others. All known human languages, except the Piraha language, have words for at least the numerals "one" and "two", and even some animals like the blackbird can distinguish a surprising number of items.
With an operating speed of 1 MHz, the Pilot Model ACE was for some time the fastest computer in the world. [ 52 ] [ 60 ] Turing's design for ACE had much in common with today's RISC architectures and it called for a high-speed memory of roughly the same capacity as an early Macintosh computer, which was enormous by the standards of his day. [ 52 ]
The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP) is a comprehensive monograph written by the computer scientist Donald Knuth presenting programming algorithms and their analysis. Volumes 1–5 are intended to represent the central core of computer programming for sequential machines.
The oldest known recordings of computer generated music were played by the Ferranti Mark 1 computer. The Mark 1 is a commercial version of the Manchester Mark 1 machine from the University of Manchester. The music program was written by Christopher Strachey. 1951: US EDVAC (electronic discrete variable computer). The first computer to use ...
Stephen White's Computer history site (the above article is a modified version of his work, used with permission) Digital Deli, edited by Steve Ditlea, full text of the classic computer book; Collection of old analog and digital computers at Old Computer Museum; ZX81 Computer Online Museum; Yahoo Computers and History
The "brain" [computer] may one day come down to our level [of the common people] and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far. — British newspaper The Star in a June 1949 news article about the EDSAC computer, long before the era of the personal computers.
During 1842–1849, Ada Lovelace translated the memoir of Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea about Charles Babbage's newest proposed machine: the Analytical Engine; she supplemented the memoir with notes that specified in detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the engine, recognized by most of historians as the world's first published computer program.