Where is the Cradle of the Computer?

The digital computer of today arose in the first half of the 1940s independently in three different countries: Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.

In Berlin, the computer was the work of a single person, and elsewhere universities, government agencies, or industry played an important role. For political reasons, the German inventor was largely cut off from the outside world.

The English worked under top-secret conditions, because the focus was on the decoding of encrypted radio messages.

Within the Unites States, on the other hand, a certain exchange of information took place. Today's digital computer thus had several protagonists (see Table 1).

 

Table 1: The roots of today's computer technology in the 19^th and 20^th centuries

Co-inventors of the computer
Name	Country	Year	Machine
Charles Babbage	U.K.	1834	Analytical engine (unfinished)
Leonardo Torres Quevedo	Spain	1920	Analytical engine (experimental machine)
George Stibitz	U.S.	1939	Complex computer
Konrad Zuse	Germany	1941	Z3
John Atanasoff	U.S.	1942	Atanasoff-Berry computer
Thomas Flowers Howard Aiken	U.K. U.S.	1943 1944	Colossus 1 Harvard Mark 1/IBM ASCC
© Bruderer Informatik, CH-9401 Rorschach, Switzerland 2022

Remark

The computer is one of many inventions that originated independently in several locations.

The computer first saw the light in three countries around the world (see Table 2).

 

Table 2: Origin of the computer

 

Cradle of the program controlled digital computer
Country	Name	Year	Machine
Germany	Konrad Zuse	1941	Zuse Z3
U.K.	Thomas Flowers	1943	Colossus 1
U.S.	George Stibitz	1939	Complex computer
John Atanasoff Clifford Berry	1942	Atanasoff-Berry computer
Howard Aiken Clair Lake	1944	Harvard Mark 1/IBM ASCC
© Bruderer Informatik, CH-9401 Rorschach, Switzerland 2022

Remarks

The computer is supposed to have been developed – even if much later (1950) – independently in the former Soviet Union: with the Mesm of Sergey Lebedev.

The first North American development centers for program controlled digital computers were Iowa State College in Ames (today Iowa State University), Bell Telephone Laboratories (then in New York City), Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), and the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, along with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ< and Columbia University in New York. Some machines bore the designation "Mark," abbreviated as Mk., meaning "model."

 

Among the pioneers of today's digital computers were Turing and von Neumann (see Table 3).

 

Table 3: Originators of the theoretical prerequisites for the computer

Who created the theoretical foundation?
Name	Country	Year	Subject
Alan Turing	U.K.	1936	Universal Turing machine
John von Neumann	U.S.	1945	Von Neumann computer
© Bruderer Informatik, CH-9401 Rorschach, Switzerland 2022

Remarks

Besides Turing and von Neumann, a number of other researchers developed the theoretical prerequisites for modern automatic computers. Zuse, for example, addresses such questions (binary system, floating point notation, and logistics machine). The roots of the von Neumann architecture go back as far as the 19^th century (Charles Babbage).

Important basic features of the present day digital computer are elaborated in the following papers:

Alan Turing (Cambridge University):
On computable numberswith an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (publication of November 30/December 23 1936),
Presentation of the universal Turing machine

John von Neumann (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton):
First draft of a report on the Edvac
(circulated on June 30 1945)
Presentation of the stored program universal computer.

Numerous other names have been associated with the development of the computer (see Table 4). However, here we are concerned only with the original inventors.

Table 4: Builders of vacuum tube computers

Builders of electronic computers
Name	Year	Machine
J. Presper Eckert	1946	Eniac
Thomas Kilburn	1948	Manchester Baby
John Mauchly	1946	Eniac
Maurice Wilkes	1949	Edsac
Frederic Williams	1948	Manchester baby
© Bruderer Informatik, CH-9401 Rorschach, Switzerland 2022

 

Source

Bruderer, Herbert: Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham, 3^rd edition 2020, 2 volumes, 2113 pages, 715 illustrations, 151 tables, translated from the German by John McMinn, https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783030409739

 

Herbert Bruderer (herbert.bruderer@bluewin.ch; bruderer@retired.ethz.ch) is a retired lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich and a historian of technology.