Many people can no longer imagine their life without a computer. He became a tool for work and leisure, opened access to the world information "web". Nevertheless, until relatively recently, no one imagined how firmly this miracle technique would enter our lives.
The first electronic computer was launched in the United States in 1946. The construction of this 28-ton unit took almost three years from 1943 to 1945. Its size amazed people, ENIAC (Electronic Digital Navigator) consumed 140 kW of power, and its cooling was carried out using Chrysler aircraft engines.
The computers that were invented before this miracle machine were only experimental. The ENIAC device was first called an electronic calculator, and its power replaced thousands of adding machines.
A serious model, the prototype of this computer, can be called Babbage's Analytical Engine. Before her invention, various mechanical calculating devices were created: the Kalmar adding machine, Leibniz's machine, Blaise Pascal's device. But all these inventions were more likely related to calculators, while Babbage's analytical engine was, in fact, the first model of a computer.
As an astronomer and founder of the Royal Astronomical Society, Babbage often had to perform various routine mathematical calculations. In order to somehow facilitate his work, he began to develop an analytical machine, advanced far in theory, but the scientist did not succeed in building it. This happened due to the fact that the ideas of the astronomer were far ahead of the technical capabilities of the middle of the 19th century. Babbage's car had more than 50,000 different parts and had to be powered by a steam generator.
It was planned that the analytical machine would be able to execute a given program (set of instructions) and write it down on a punched card. Babbage's car had components that are used in modern computers. In 1991, on the bicentennial anniversary of the astronomer-inventor, the staff of the London Museum created a machine according to Babbage's drawings, and a few years later they assembled a printer designed by him. The weight of the machine was 2.6 tons, the weight of the printer was 3.5 tons. Assembled using technologies from the mid-19th century, the devices worked perfectly.
However, the first really working computer was exactly the unit created in the USA. It was developed for the needs of the army and was intended for calculating the ballistic tables of aviation and artillery. Later, the smart machine was used to build a hydrogen bomb project and analyze cosmic radiation.
