I'm standing by the control panel. Before me stretches the machine. Size? Well, I suppose it's about the size鈥t would just tuck perhaps into the smallest bedroom in a 3-bedroom house. There are doors along each side, which when opened, reveal a mass of wires and connections. To me, artistic, because they're so neat, so tidy, so obviously going somewhere, shall I say?
The control panel in front of me carries neat tidy rows of switches and of indicator lights. To the left is the input machine, which interprets鈥hich takes in cards, rather bigger than postcards, punched with holes in certain positions, which are, if you like, the language that the machine speaks. But the great point is, that whatever calculations it's asked to do, it performs in a flash, literally in a flash - quick as a flash of lightning, no matter how complex it is.
1955: No single machine can claim to be the first computer. However, the work of the 19th century the UK mathematician and philosopher, Charles Babbage, certainly anticipated the creation of computers. Babbage was concerned by the human error that occurred in mathematical calculations and had the idea of building a device that would eradicate them. He called it the 'Analytical Engine'. From 1833-1842 Babbage worked on developing a machine that stored programs on punched cards, although it was never actually built.
In the 1930s and 1940s an another UK mathematician and logician, Alan Turing, conceived the Turing Machine, another mathematical tool, which formed the basis for computer science. All subsequent digital computers are to some degree dependent on Turing's work.
The first electronic computers were large and costly, and were used for mainly military purposes during World War 2 - eg the code-breaking machine, 'Colossus'. At this time there was little or no notion that computers could or would be used by individuals for either work or recreation.
Early computers stored data on punched card. Those that stored programs in their own memory were developed in the late 1940s and were the predecessors of the modern computer. However, it was the development of the microprocessor in the 1970s that led to the rapid development of computer technology, paving the way for the affordable personal computer.
The images show part of an early computer, pictured in 1955 and the computer complex run by a large bank (exact date unknown).
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