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An open PDP-8/E with its logic modules behind the front panel and one dual TU56 DECtape drive at the top. A "Straight-8" running at the Stuttgart Computer Museum. The earliest PDP-8 model, informally known as a "Straight-8", was introduced on 22 March 1965 priced at $18,500 [2] (equivalent to about $178,900 in 2023 [3] ).
A vacuum-tube computer, now termed a first-generation computer, is a computer that uses vacuum tubes for logic circuitry. While the history of mechanical aids to computation goes back centuries, if not millennia, the history of vacuum tube computers is confined to the middle of the 20th century. Lee De Forest invented the triode in 1906.
Functionally, EDVAC was a binary serial computer with automatic addition, subtraction, multiplication, programmed division and automatic checking with an ultrasonic serial memory [3] having a capacity of 1,024 44-bit words. EDVAC's average addition time was 864 microseconds and its average multiplication time was 2,900 microseconds.
The Kenbak-1, released in early 1971, is considered by the Computer History Museum to be the world's first personal computer. It was designed and invented by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was first sold in early 1971. Unlike a modern personal computer, the Kenbak-1 was built of small-scale integrated circuits, and did not ...
IBM Personal Computer. The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team of engineers and designers at International Business Machines (IBM), directed by ...
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation ). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally ...
The history of computing hardware covers the development of machines that can perform calculations, from the ancient abacus to the modern electronic computer. This Wikipedia article traces the origins and evolution of computing devices, such as mechanical calculators, punched cards, vacuum tubes, transistors, microprocessors, and supercomputers.
The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse in 1938, and completed in 1941. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. [3] The Z3 was built with 2,600 relays, implementing a 22- bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz. [1]