computer first invented

Ah, bless. We’ve all heard that one—usually over a pint, just before someone insists the Romans had Wi-Fi. Truth is, the tale of when the computer first invented is less *“Eureka!”* and more *“Right, let’s bodge this till it stops smoking.”* It’s a saga spun across centuries: brass gears in Regency drawing rooms, vacuum tubes humming like angry bees in wartime bunkers, and silicon chips whispering secrets at the speed of light. So grab yer cuppa, settle in—and don’t worry if yer biscuit goes soggy. This story takes a minute. (And yes, there’ll be typos. Life’s too short for perfect commas.)

Let’s rewind to 1821—Napoleon’s in exile, Jane Austen’s just published *Persuasion*, and young Charles Babbage, Cambridge boffin and part-time curmudgeon, spots a clerk making errors in log tables. His reaction? *“Blimey. We need a machine that *can’t* get bored.”* Thus began the Difference Engine: a 2-tonne brass monstrosity designed to *calculate polynomial functions* via, well, *differences*. Never built in his lifetime (gov’t pulled funding—some things never change), but—critically—it embodied the first formal concept of *automated computation*. So when folks ask, *“Who invented the first computer in 1821?”*—technically? Nobody did. But Babbage *dreamt* it. And dreams, luv, are the first line of code.

Enter Ada Lovelace—Lord Byron’s daughter, mathematician, and possessor of *the world’s first imagination for what computers could be*. In 1843, translating an Italian paper on Babbage’s (still unbuilt) Analytical Engine, she added notes longer than the original—*including Note G*, which described an algorithm to compute Bernoulli numbers. That’s right: the computer first invented *in theory* had, by 1843, its first programmer. She wrote: *“The engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music…”*—a vision so far ahead, even Babbage blinked. History remembers her as the prophet of general-purpose computing. (And no, she didn’t get paid. Typical.)

Fast-forward to WWII. Britain’s cracking Enigma at Bletchley Park with *Colossus*—ten machines, built in secret, using 1,500 valves each. Operational by *December 1943*, Colossus could read 5,000 characters per second, reducing decryption from *weeks to hours*. But was it “the” first computer? Depends who you ask. Meanwhile, across the pond, the US Army funded ENIAC—*Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer*—completed in **1945**, unveiled Feb ’46. 17,468 vacuum tubes. 30 tons. 150 kW draw. Could do 5,000 additions/sec. Operators wore lab coats *and* oven mitts (those valves got hot). So—*“When was the first computer invented in 1945?”* ENIAC’s delivery date was Dec ’45. But first *run*? 1946. Semantics, innit? What matters: the computer first invented as a *working, reprogrammable, general-purpose* machine? Yeah—1945–46. With a side of burnt toast smell.

Here’s the twist most forget: ENIAC had to be *rewired* to change tasks—like swapping guitar strings between songs. Then, in June 1948, at the Uni of Manchester, a team led by Frederic Williams and Tom Kilburn powered up the Small-Scale Experimental Machine—nicknamed *“The Baby.”* Just 32 words of memory. Ran for 52 minutes. Executed *the world’s first stored-program*—meaning instructions lived *in memory*, not on plugboards. Revolution in a shoebox (well, a 5m cabinet). This wasn’t just *a* computer—it was the *blueprint* for every one after. The true birth of the architecture still in yer phone today. Yep—computer first invented *properly*? Maybe not in ’45. Maybe in ’48. In rainy Manchester. Wi’ tea breaks.

Vacuum tubes were fickle—burnt out like cheap lightbulbs. Enter the *transistor*, 1947 (Bell Labs). Tiny. Reliable. Cool. By 1954, Texas Instruments built the first *transistor radio*—and the *TRADIC*, the first fully transistorised computer (used by the USAF). Then—*boom*—integrated circuits (1958), microprocessors (1971), and suddenly, computation wasn’t for boffins in basements. It was for *us*. So—*“Who invented the computer in 1971?”* Tricky. Intel released the *4004*, the first commercial microprocessor (designed by Hoff, Faggin, Mazor & co.), but it wasn’t a *computer*—just the *brain*. The *Micral N* (1973) and *Altair 8800* (1975) were early microcomputers. So 1971? Pivotal—but not the computer first invented. More like… the spark that lit the bonfire.

Let’s get visual—here’s how the dream turned into your laptop:

Right—time to bust some cobwebs. No, Konrad Zuse’s *Z3* (1941) wasn’t “the first”—it lacked conditional branching (so not Turing-complete). No, the *Atanasoff-Berry Computer* (1942) wasn’t forgotten genius—it *was* electronic and binary, but *not programmable*, and never worked reliably. And no, Alan Turing didn’t *build* a computer—he gave us the *theory* (1936’s *Turing Machine*), which made everything else *thinkable*. The story of the computer first invented is messy, collaborative, and gloriously *human*—full of near-misses, rivalries, and engineers yelling *“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”* decades before the phrase existed.

Let’s ground this in brass tacks:
— ENIAC cost ≈ £350,000 in 1946 (≈ **£15 million today**). Funded by the US Army.
— Took 6 women “computers” (Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, et al.) *weeks* to reprogram ENIAC via switches & cables—work later erased from history books.
— The Manchester Baby used *CRT storage*—a cathode-ray tube repurposed as memory. Think: repurposing a telly to store your shopping list.
— In 1951, the *Ferranti Mark 1* (commercial ENIAC derivative) sold for £30,000—≈ **£1 million today**. Only *seven* were made. So yeah—the computer first invented wasn’t exactly “off-the-shelf.” More like “bespoke, hand-delivered, and prone to catching fire.”

So what’s the takeaway? The computer first invented wasn’t a single “eureka” moment—it was a relay race across 150 years. Babbage passed the baton to Lovelace, who tossed it to Turing, who lobbed it to Flowers, who sprinted to Williams & Kilburn, who handed off to Intel… and now? It’s in our pockets, our cars, our fridges. And yet—every time you Google “when was the computer first invented?”, you’re using a descendant of that 1948 Baby, running code descended from Ada’s Bernoulli algorithm. Funny, innit? We owe our digital lives to a Victorian dreamer, a poet’s daughter, and a shed in Manchester that smelled of solder and hope. And if you fancy diving deeper—pop over to The Great War Archive, browse our History section, or check out our piece on Browsing History Chromebook: Clear Track. No logins. No paywalls. Just proper telly-worthy history.

References

• https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/birth-of-the-computer/4/78
• https://www.britannica.com/technology/ENIAC
• https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/computing/first-computers
• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computing-history/