How much did the very first computer cost?

Answer 1

From The ENIAC Story ... The original agreement between the United States of America and the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, dated June 5, 1943, called for six months of "research and development of an electronic numerical integrator and computer and delivery of a report thereon." This initial contract committed $61,700 in U.S. Army Ordnance funds. Nine supplements to this contract extended the work to 1946, increased the amount ultimately to a total of $486,804.22, assigned technical supervision to the Ballistic Research Laboratories, and called for the delivery of a working "pilot model," first to be operable at the University of Pennsylvania and then to be delivered to the Ballistic Research Laboratories at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. From this point forward, the research staff and faculty of the Moore School under Dr. Pender undertook rigorous prosecution of the development pursuant to the terms of the Ordnance contract. The project was placed under the supervision of Professor Brainerd, with Mr. Eckert as chief engineer and Dr. Mauchly, who provided the original outline for this development, as principal consultant. Captain Goldstine, the resident supervisor for the Ordnance Department, not only exercised extraordinarily detailed and highly competent supervision for the Government but also contributed greatly to the mathematical side of this undertaking. As in all important undertakings which achieve important results, this was the work of many individuals. The ENIAC was placed in operation at the Moore School, component by component, beginning with the cycling unit and an accumulator in June 1944. This was followed in rapid succession by the initiating unit and function tables in September 1945 and the divider and square-root unit in October 1945. Final assembly took place during the fall of 1945. By today's standards for electronic computers the ENIAC was a grotesque monster. Its thirty separate units, plus power supply and forced-air cooling, weighed over thirty tons. Its 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors consumed almost 200 kilowatts of electrical power. But ENIAC was the prototype from which most other modern computers evolved. It embodied almost all the components and concepts of today's high- speed, electronic digital computers. Its designers conceived what has now become standard circuitry such as the gate (logical "and" element), buffer (logical "or" element) and used a modified Eccles-Jordan flip-flop as a logical, high-speed storage-and-control device. The machine's counters and accumulators, with more sophisticated innovations, were made up of combinations of these basic elements. ... SOURCE: http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/comphist/eniac-story.html

Answer 2

It was around 4-5 thousand dollars for an original Apple Computer. The Apple II was released, and then they had another computer called the "Lisa." This computer costed about $10,000 and because of the price, it was not very popular.

Answer 3

The first digital computers were very expensive and were primarily military projects. The 'enigma' project used a computer to decode German messages, for example. Because these were classified military projects, getting a realistic cost estimate might be difficult.

ENIAC, the first general purpose digital computer, was designed to calculate ballistics for the US Army and was used in making calculations for the hydrogen bomb and other large projects. The published price tag was $500,000 (many millions in today's dollars) but a realistic price for the complete system would certainly be much higher.

Answer 4

Answer: $3500

Answer: According to Wikipedia, articles "History of laptops" and "Osborne 1", the first mass-produced laptop was the Osborne 1, at an introductory price of US$ 1795.

Answer 5

It depends. The very first computer, the HUAC, probably costed millions of dollars. The first personal home computer was around $10000 and took up an entire room.

Answer 6

The Apple 1, the first computer made for home users cost $666.66.

Answer 7

the electronic computer cost just about $350 it was made back around 1939 so it was cheaper than the electroioc computer now a days

Answer 8

it costed 10 cents and 40 buffalo nickles

Answer 9

$1795