Posted on 10/08/2008 7:53:33 PM PDT by mimi from mi
When I heard Barack Hussein Obama mention last night that the government invented computers, I immediately thought it was invented by kids (not Al Gore) working in a garage. Guess I was wrong as today I discovered the following on another blog:
Was this a McCain moment by obama?
Quick takeaway from the 2nd presidential debate - Obama claimed specifically that U.S. government invented the computer, and Obama was very wrong. The computer was developed over a long period of time, and by most historical accounts trace back to Europe with British and German inventors in the late 19th and early 20th century for the conceptual idea of a computer. For a functioning machine, most historical accounts point to a Iowa State University professor and his graduate student:
“I have always taken the position that there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the electronic computer” - John Atanasoff to reporters.
Professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built the world’s first electronic-digital computer at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer represented several innovations in computing, including a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/08/a-privilege-to-join-the-debate/
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was not general purpose, as it was built to solve linear equations only, and could not be programmed. Yes, it was the first electronic computer, of a sort, but not the first true computer as we know them, i.e. a programmable system with volatile memory etc.
The Z1 built by Konrad Zuse(Germany) circa 1936 would get my vote for the first.
Nope. Well, maybe the history of Marxism...
I'm not sure about her contribution to COBOL, but Grace Hopper pioneered the development of early assembly language compilers, the first step beyond writing directly in the binary language of 0 and 1.
Met Hooper when she was a Captain.
Very appropriate considering He is part of Marxist history.
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