A computer is more than just an engine wrapped up in a box full of plastic.  For most people today, a computer is a lifeline to business, finances, and social perspectives.  Even though one thinks that computers did not come around until the 1980s, this is simply a myth.  The first computers date back to the year 1939.  

In 1939, Bill Hewlett and David Packard created their first product, the HP200A.  This computer was invented in a Palo Alto, California garage.  Consequently, Hewlett-Packard is founded.  The HP 200A became very widely used among engineers.  In fact, the HP 200B was developed for Walt Disney for the use of sound effects in the 1940 movie Fantasia.

The next computer was the Complex Number Calculator or (CNC).  The CNC was developed by researcher George Stibitz, and manufactured by Bell Telephone Laboratories.  The CNC is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing because Stibitz was able to perform mathematical operations on the CNC at the 1939 American Mathematical Society.  Stibitz used teletype by using special telephone lines.

In 1941, German engineer Konrad Zuse developed the Z3 computer.  This computer used 2,300 relays, and had a 22-bit word length.  

Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry developed the Atanasoff-Berry computer in 1942.  This computer was built at Iowa State College, which is now known as Iowa State University.

The next computer was developed in 1943 when the United States Navy discussed with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator in order to train bomber crews during World War II. This project was known as Project Whirlwind.

In 1944, a Harvard professor named Howard Aiken completed the Harvard Mark-1.  The Harvard Mark-1 was designed and built by IBM.  This computer was actually a room sized relay based calculator that was initially used to produce mathematical tables.

In 1945 “The First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC” was written by John von Neumann.  This passage described an outline for the design and architecture of a stored-program computer.  

In 1946, a project was initiated by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, thus creating the ENIAC.  This computer was programmed by plugboards and switches.  It had a speed of 5K per second, the input/output was by cards, lights, switches, and plugs, and it had a floor space of 1K square feet.

Headed by project leader Wallace Eckert, in 1948 IBM’s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator was introduced.  This calculator computed scientific data in public display.  The speed of the calculator was 50 multiplications per second.  The input/output of the calculator was cards and punched tape.  The memory type was punched tape, vacuum tubes, and relays.  The technology of the calculator was 20 thousand relays and 12,500 vacuum tubes.  The calculator took up 25 feet by 40 feet of floor space.  

In 1949, Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDASAC.  This computer was the first practical stored-program computer.  It was designed at Cambridge University.  The technology of the EDASAC was vacuum tubes.  The memory was 1K words, 17 bits, and a mercury delay line.  The computer operated at a speed of 714 operations per second.

Since 1939 the computer has made many new developments, not only to its size, but also to its applications.  Now the computer is a household item that is found in almost every home.