Computers

The best desktop computer to have is a silver sony

1. John Vincent Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry built ABC, the first electronic digital computer (a special purpose machine that was not programmable) from 1936 to 1942. The local newspaper in Ames, Iowa where it was built published an article on it in 1941.
2. Tommy Flowers and a team in the British Post Office built Colossus, the first programmable electronic digital computer from late 1943 to June 5, 1944 to break the Nazi high command's cyphers, just in time for D-day. Before the end of the war a total of 10 Colossus computers were built in 2 different models. Colossus remained classified until after 1980, so it does not appear in most computer histories.
3. J. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly, and a team of several hundred engineers, technicians, and assemblers built the ENIAC, the first general purpose programmable electronic digital computer from 1943 to November 1945. Its first real program took 2 months to run (December 1945 to January 1946) and simulated Edward Teller's first hydrogen bomb design (proving it unworkable). ENIAC was declassified and announced to the public in February 1946 (the first computer to receive nationwide publicity).

The first computer, called UNIVAC, was designed by Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and was completed by Remington Rand in 1951. There would have been several projects running in parallel. Lyons (who made cakes and ran teashops) sponsored Cambridge university to build EDSAC (first program run in 1949), this was intended to prove the concept of a business computer. Following this its successor LEO went into production use in 1951. Lyons went on sell LEOs and provide an outsourcing facility but ultimately they were a cake maker not an IT company so they merged the LEO business with EEC. So you could argue that EDSAC was the first commercial computer running in 1949

It didn't cost anything, because there weren't any minicomputers in 1962. IBM released their first mini, the 1130, in 1965, and it cost, according to IBM, $32,280. Obviously that number was picked by an accountant instead of the programmers. Check it out: the 1130 was a 16-bit computer, and the largest 16-bit number is 16,384. A programmer would have chosen $32,768--twice 16,384--as the computer's price.

A small computer, generally built with integrated circuits but no microprocessor. Usually smaller than a mainframe computer and bigger than a microcomputer. Generally made obsolete by the microprocessor and microcomputers.

Several electronic analog computers were made in the 1930s.

The first electronic digital computer was the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) in early 1942, it worked (except for intermittent problems in the high speed "card" reader/punch) but was abandoned soon after when the two people working on it left for war work.

The next electronic digital computer was the Colossus a prototype of which was built in December 1943 and the first production unit went into operation in June 1944 just in time to crack critical German messages that were used by the Allied generals to commit to the D-Day landings despite very bad weather conditions. Unfortunately these computers (the only ones built in a quantity greater than one until Univac in 1952) remained classified until the early 1980s and so do not appear in most histories of computing.

The first well known electronic digital computer was the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) in November 1945 and announced to the public in February 1946.

The First Computer weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 feet (2.4 m) by 3 feet (0.9 m) by 100 feet (30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power.

Colossus! The Colossus was used during WWII to break German codes. Tony Sale has actually rebuilt a Colossus machine which is operational and on display for the public at Bletchley Park in England.

The Cornell Theory Center at Cornell University, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California San Diego, and the John von Neumann Center at Princeton.

It depends on how you define computer. If you include primitive calculating devices you can go all the way back to the abacus developed by the Chinese. But assuming you mean the modern computing era of computers began with Charles Babbage's "Difference Engine" in 1822, a mechanical calculator powered by steam engine. Babbage is often called the "Father of Modern Computers".

The first electromechanical computer that could tabulate, compile and record data was the Hollerith's Electric Tabulating Machine in 1890, by Herman Hollerith.

There were a few other electromechanical devices until the ENIAC by Mauchly and Eckart. ENIAC is the computer that is often called the First Generation Computer in computer science text books. It was developed from 1943 to 1945. It was the first general purpose computer (not just a calculator).

Computers help society by using internet connection so that people from all around the world know each other. Some examples like facebook and MSN can be a really convenient program to know each other from all around the world

Parts which make a computer are called computer components. These include CPU (central processing unit), input devices like keyboard, mouse and output devices like display or monitor, storage devices like RAM, hard disk drive etc.

- Neeraj Sharma

Well typically a computer is known as "powerful" if it can perform a relatively large number of calculations in a relatively short period of time. Following this definition, the CPU would be what makes a computer powerful (assuming you ignore all the limiting factors of the other hardware).

No single figure can be given, as this has varied widely over the years with changing technology (e.g. tube, transistor, IC, VLSI), architectural improvements, implementation (e.g. microcode vs. hardwired logic vs. programmable logic devices), etc.

The data across the wire is being sent in 1s and 0s. 1s mean on and 0s mean off. Digital signals are moved in a up down almost perfect rhythm. Analog shows data in jerky signal and its harder to read. That is why when analog power goes into your system from the wall jack it is converted into digital power.

I think the impact is changing people's shopping way, which let people choose to stay at home and reduce their communication.

The biggest computers ever built were the AN/FSQ-7 computers built by IBM in the late 1950s for the Air Force's SAGE air defense system. Only 52 of these machines were built, they occupied an entire floor of a large windowless concrete building. The last 2 of these computers were finally retired in the mid 1980s. They had roughly 50,000 vacuum tubes each. Any modern microprocessor could easily out perform them by many orders of magnitude. Even microprocessors available in the mid 1980s out performed them.

Presper Eckert and John Mauchly were the first to patent a digital computing device, the ENIAC computer. A patent infringement case (Sperry Rand Vs. Honeywell, 1973) voided the ENIAC patent as a derivative of John Atanasoff's invention.