MHI 008 · Exhibition
1936–1948
Disputed attributionGermany, United Kingdom and United States
Which machine was “first” depends on the definition. Konrad Zuse’s Z3 (1941) was the first working programmable automatic digital computer; Colossus (1943–44) and ENIAC (1945–46) followed; the Manchester Baby ran the first stored program in 1948.
The computer was never invented at a single moment. Theory, mechanical design, electrical engineering and programming each had different pioneers, working in separate countries and, in wartime, often in secret.
The world before
Calculations for astronomy, navigation, engineering and the census were done by people, called “computers”, using tables, slide rules and mechanical calculators. Errors crept in and complex problems took weeks.
Records were kept on paper, in filing cabinets and card catalogues. Searching them meant walking to the drawer.
The human achievement
In 1837 Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine, a mechanical, programmable calculator that was never built. In 1843 Ada Lovelace published extensive notes on it, including a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers and the speculation that such a machine might manipulate things other than numbers.
In 1936 Alan Turing described an abstract machine that could carry out any calculation given the right instructions. In 1941 Konrad Zuse completed the Z3 in Berlin. At Bletchley Park, Colossus, designed by Tommy Flowers, helped break German ciphers from 1943–44. In the United States, ENIAC was completed in 1945 and publicly announced in 1946; six women, including Kay McNulty and Betty Jennings, programmed it.
The Manchester Baby ran the first stored program in June 1948. The transistor (1947, Bell Laboratories) and the integrated circuit (1958–59, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce) made computers smaller, faster and cheaper.
Understanding the invention
A computer follows instructions stored in memory, one tiny step at a time.
Step 01 of 04
Text, images and sound are encoded as patterns of ones and zeros, called bits.
IV
The transformation
Computers handle climate models, genome sequencing and simulations that would be impossible by hand.
Records, accounting, design and manufacturing were digitised, and whole professions changed.
Imaging, diagnostics and research depend on computation.
Computers are embedded in phones, cars, appliances and infrastructure.
It made information itself a material that could be stored, copied, searched and transformed. Almost every modern field now depends on it.
Before and after
Before
Teams of people calculated tables by hand, taking weeks.
After
The same calculations run in seconds.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
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Its legacy
MHI 008
The Computer
In this museum
The Light BulbThe vacuum tubes in early machines descend from experiments with lamp filaments.
Beyond the collection
Artificial intelligence
Turing’s questions about machine intelligence continue in current research.
Beyond the collection
Robotics and automation
Computer control underlies modern manufacturing and logistics.
Human stories
Lovelace’s 1843 notes on Babbage’s engine are among the earliest published descriptions of a computing program, and they imagined uses beyond arithmetic. Historians continue to debate how much of the mathematics was hers, but her authorship of the notes is documented.
Six women programmed ENIAC without a manual, working out how to wire and set the machine themselves. Their work was long overlooked in accounts of the machine.
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
Next in the museum
Related exhibitions
MHI 009The Internet1969–1991Information is broken into small packets that find their own way across many networks and are reassembled at the destination.
MHI 006The Light Bulb1878–1880A thin filament inside a glass bulb glows when electricity passes through it. A vacuum, or inert gas, stops it from burning away.
MHI 005The Telephone1876A diaphragm vibrates with the voice, varying an electric current that recreates the sound at the other end of a wire.