"Who invented the computer?"

John Von Neumann, soon to work at SIU:

Mentioned that one upstream, got 2 likes

I think there is a sim on the web

It was found in an ancient shipwreck

Some think the Greeks had many engines like this, but they were scrapped by later generations who did not understand them, because they were made of valuable brass

have a like

There was the Antikythera mechanism around 100-200BC which has been referred to as an analogue computer. It appears to be able to compute astronomical positions and Olympiads.

From Pickover, Poland 1959 (my birth year)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AKAT-1.JPG

beacon_dave wrote:

 

clem57 - a bit of a trick question perhaps, as I believe that 'computer' originally referred to that of a person who computes/calculates (e.g. someone who created mathematical tables) and thus the term computer was presumably in use long before the mechanical and electronic machines appeared on the scene. So I'd probably have to go with 'mother nature' as the inventor.

This is true.  My Dad was a "geodetic computer" in the Army Air Corps, and used a Marchant calculator to assist with his computations.  What we call a "computer" today used to be called an "automatic computer" or "electronic computer".  The names of lot of early automatic computers ended with "AC".

I think that initially Swan was only able to achieve a partial vacuum in the lamp, so his carbonised paper filament didn't last long enough to make it a practical lamp.

Whereas Edison was using carbonised thread filament in a pure vacuum and was able to get his lamps to last up to 600hours which made them of practical use. I believe he later switched to Swan's carbonised paper as a filament, then to carbonised bamboo.

(There was a documentary about it broadcast here on TV last week.)

More info about the history available at:

History of the Incandescent Light

Arc Lamps - How They Work & History

Indeed. He's given credit selectively to some people (and some of the headings are misleading too) and missed out others in the article.

But then the article might have been a few hundred pages long! : )

I wouldn't have minded that!!

It could be what the author meant, but to be honest the entire article is vague.

Not sure it is worth analysing that article much because it is hard to condense this history

into a few hundred words of course.

If we were to scrutinise it enough, there are other holes in it. It is ok-ish

for people to get some sense of the history but it has plenty of highly important bits skipped

which makes the rest misleading for us, especially because we're so passionate to see

the history of electronics in all its correct glory. We're not the intended audience.

It would be impossible perhaps to get the history accurate in so few words, many would have

refused to try in such a short article maybe.

But you're right, perhaps that is what the author meant, i.e. arc lamps maybe.

How about Joseph Swan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb  gives him credit before Edison.

Clem

The 'discovery of the light bulb' could refer to the carbon arc lamp which had two electrodes.  'Edison's light bulb' then came along which used a filament in a (pure) vacuum and was probably 'one of the first uses of vacuum tubes for electrical applications'.