Remix.run Logo
jcranmer 8 hours ago

There are three main problems with trying to offer a simple answer to the question of "what is the first computer?"

The most obvious of the problems is that a computer isn't a singular technology that springs up de novo, but something that develops from antecedents over a long, messy transition problem that requires a judgement call as to when the proto-computer becomes an actual computer. A judgement call which is obviously going to be biased based on the other considerations. Consider, for a more contemporary example, what you would argue as the "first smartphone" or the "first LLM." Personally, I think the ENIAC is still somewhat too proto-computer for my tastes: I'd prefer a "first" that uses binary arithmetic and has stored programs, neither of which is true for the ENIAC.

The second major issue is it's also instructive to look at the candidates' influence on later development. Among the contenders for "first computer," it's unfortunately kinda clear that ENIAC has the most lasting influence. ENIAC's development produced the papers that directly inspires the next generation of machines. Colossus is screwed here because of the secrecy of the code-breaking effort. Meanwhile, Zuse and Z3 suffer from being on the losing end of WW2. ABC has a claim here, but it's not clear whether or not the developers of ENIAC drew influence from ABC or not.

The final major issue isn't so much an issue by itself but rather something that colors the interpretation of the first two issues: national pride. An American is far more likely to weight the influence and ingenuity of the ENIAC and similar machines to label one of them the "first computer." A UK person would instead prefer to crown Colossus or the Manchester Baby. A German would prefer the Z3.

alephnil 6 hours ago | parent [-]

In many ways the ENIAC was more like an FPGA than a computer. It was programmed with patch cables connecting the different computational units as well as switches, and had no CPU as such. The cables had to be physically rerouted when changing to a new program, which took weeks. My understanding is that it was eventually programmed to emulate a von Neuman machine around 1948/49. As far as I understand, this was done mainly by Jean Bartik based on Von Neumans ideas.

If this is correct, it was not a von Neuman machine originally, but it eventually became one, and at approximately the same time as the Manchester Baby.