Computer History

First programmable computer

The Z1 originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer.

The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to be developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer. The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC computer was the first digital computer many still consider the ENIAC to be the first digital computer. Because of the Judge ruling and because the case was never appealed like most we consider the ABC to be the first digital computer. However, because the ABC was never fully functional we consider the first functional digital computer to be the ENIAC.

The first stored program computer

The early British computer known as the EDSAC is considered to be the first stored program electronic computer. The computer performed its first calculation on May 6, 1949 and was the computer that ran the first graphical computer game. The first personal computer

In 1975 Ed Roberts coined the term personal computer when he introduced the Altair 8800. Although the first personal computer is considered to be the Kenback-1, which was first introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and output data by turning on and off a series of lights. The Micral is considered the be the first commercial non-assembly computer. The computer used the Intel 8008 processor and sold for $1,750 in 1973. The first workstation

Although never sold the first workstation is considered to be the Xerox Alto, introduced in 1974. The computer was revolutionary for its time and included a fully functional computer, display, and mouse. The computer operated like many computers today utilizing windows, menus and icons as an interface to its operating system. The first laptop or portable computer

The first portable computer or laptop is considered to be the Osborne I, a portable computer developed by Adam Osborne that weighed 24 pounds, a 5-inch display, 64 KB of memory, two 5 1/4" floppy drives, and a modem.

A high speed printing device that primarily uses a laser and static electricity for attaching toner to paper. I believe it should really be called the static electricity printer! You see; the primary principle at work in this machine is static electricity. The laser inside the printer never really touches the paper.

The LASER printer really has four basic parts that are most important.

1. The laser Unit (with mirror)

2. The Toner Hopper

3. The Drum Assembly (with 3 additional parts)

4. And the Fuser assembly.

How a laser printer is working:

1. Whenever the printer gets its information, the printers' circuit board then takes that information and converts it into a code. Like Morse code.

2. The laser prints it to a negative (statically) charged rotating drum.

3. when the laser pulses light on the drum it creates a small DOT of neutral electricity.

4. the drum or (toner hopper) charges the toner powder to a negative charge as well.

5. when the toner is pushed through the drum the toner is sucked into the Neutral spaces left by the laser. Creating an image.

6. paper is Positively charged. and pushed through the drum. The toner is statically bonded to the paper. Like a magnet, it sticks together.

7. the fuser assembly heats up 300+ degrees and fuses the toner to the paper.

Different from inkjet printers using ink, laser printers use toner as printing materials.

Ink cartridges are usually cheaper than toner cartridges. However, toner cartridge has the lower cost per page than inkjet does.

It is IBM

Its owner is CHINA now a days

That is a close race between:

• Atanasof Berry Computer (ABC) - electronic, binary 50 bit fixed point, 60 words dynamic memory (capacitors), 30 add/sub persec, special purpose not programmable array/vector processor
• Konrad Zuse Z1 (Zuse Z1) - mechanical binary 22 bit floating point, 64 words static memory (mechanical), add/sub 5 sec, mult 10 sec, general purpose programmable (using punched recycled movie film as tape) scalar processor

1. Vacuum tube
2. Discrete transistor (a few used magnetic amplifiers)
3. Integrated circuit (both hybrids and monolithics)
4. Microprocessors (both multi-chip chipsets and single chip)
5. Multi-core microprocessors and system on a chipprocessors

First and second generation computers usually were separated into business and scientific product lines, with completely different architectures optimized for market application. Most third generation and beyond used a common general purpose architecture regardless of market application.

System on a chip processors have one or more processor cores plus most of the I/O hardware normally on a motherboard in a single chip. This eliminates most of the need for a motherboard.

The actual computers called Colossus were World War II code-breaking computers built in 1943 and 1944 in Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, England. These were the first true programmable computers, and about a dozen were built.

The prototype, Colossus Mark I, was shown working in December 1943 and was operational at Bletchley Park by February 1944. An improved Colossus Mark II was first installed in June 1944, and ten more had been constructed by the end of the war. Unfortunately, the secret nature of these computers meant that their innovations were not available for commercial computer development for many years.

*The other computer called Colossus is a fictional artificial intelligence from a 1965 novel (Colossus) by Dennis Feltham Jones, which was the basis for the film Colossus, the Forbin Project in 1970

Another answer would note that the Internet was not actually invented until several years later than the above scenario, when multiple networks were connected together (an "internet" is, by definition more than one network), and the internet protocol was standardized in 1982.