On Sep 15, 2006, at 11:45 AM, Terry Ford wrote:
In 1943, Colossus, the world's first programmable digital
electronic computer
This part of the entry is mostly wrong
There was actually a lawsuit in which the Eniac folks were suing for
the right to claim the right to this title and they were upstaged and
the suit resolved in Atanasoff and Berry's favor who predated all of
these (they did their work prior to WW II)
Even Konrad Zuse, whose work remained largely unknown because he was
a German, predated much of the Colossus work.
I believe the professional magazines and literature (Anals of the
Hostory of Computing) reflects that Atanasoff Berry is in fact the
earliest programmable digital computer.
But, their computer was not GENERAL PURPOSE and so I believe that the
Eniac ends up claiming the title of first general purpose digital
computer and the Atanasoff Berry the first programmable digital
computer.
, conceived by Tommy Flowers and his crew at the British Post
Office, Dollis Hill facility, was built at Bletchley Park in order
to break the Fish Cyphers, in particular the Lorenz cipher.
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