First+Computer

by Macire, Grade 6



Have you ever asked yourself what the first computer was? In this report we are going to answer that question. We are going to talk about the very first computers, some of which you wouldn’t even think were computers.

The word compute means calculate and compute is the root of computer, so that means the computer is a counting machine. The first computer is the abacus because the abacus is a counting machine. The abacus was first invented in China and spread around the world in 300 B.C. There were different versions of the abacus. There was the Egyptian abacus, the Roman abacus and a lot of other versions.

The first fully electronic computer was the ABC. The ABC (Antasoff Berry Computer) was made by John V. Antasoff and Clifford Berry. It was being invented from 1939 through 1942 in the basement of a physics department. John V. Antasoff and Clifford Berry never finished the ABC computer because of World War II. John V. Antasoff’s colleagues finished the computer.

Konrad Zuse was a German inventor who made the Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4. Konrad Zuse made the first programmable computer in his parents’ living room during 1936 to 1938. In 1939 Zuse finished the Z2. Zuse used recycled materials to create the Z3 in 1941 during World War II. The Z3 used old movie film to store programs. The Z4 was invented and smuggled onto a German armored truck in 1940. Instead of using old movie film Zuse used hole-punched paper cards. He didn’t use hole-punched paper in Germany for the Z3 because paper was expensive. In Switzerland it wasn’t that expensive.

The inventors of the Mark I were Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper. They made Mark I at Harvard University in 1944. The US Navy used the computer for gunnery and ballistic calculations until 1959. The computer was controlled by pre-punched paper, and it could carry out simple math problems.

The Mark II was finished in 1947 by Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper. The Mark II was financed by the US Navy. The Navy kept the Mark 2 just in case there was another world war. The Mark II was not a stored program computer. The Mark II ran some realistic test programs in July, 1947. The Mark II was the first computer to have a bug. The term bug came from a moth getting stuck in one of the vacuum tubes of Mark II.

Thank you for reading this report. I hope it will inspire you to write your own report. I hope it gave you more information about how computers back then eventually turned into computers now.