The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid calculation to modern day computers. Before the 20th century, most calculations were done by humans.
ENIAC was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one package. It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.
EDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. It was built by Moore School of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania. Along with ORDVAC, it was a successor to the ENIAC. Unlike ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was designed to be a stored-program computer.
The IBM 7030, also known as Stretch, was IBM's first transistorized supercomputer. It was the fastest computer in the world from 1961 until the first CDC 6600 became operational in 1964.
The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer and its first series production mainframe computer, which was announced to the public on May 21, 1952. It was invented and developed by Jerrier Haddad and Nathaniel Rochester based on the IAS machine at Princeton.
The ORDVAC, is an early computer built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. A successor to the ENIAC. It was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann, which came to be known as the von Neumann architecture. The ORDVAC was the first computer to have a compiler. ORDVAC passed its acceptance tests on March 6, 1952, at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Its purpose was to perform ballistic trajectory calculations for the US Military. In 1992, the Ballistic Research Laboratory became a part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.
The Cyclone, was a vacuum tube computer, built by Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa. The computer was commissioned in July 1959. It was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann. The prototype was ILLIAC, the University of Illinois Automatic Computer. The Cyclone used 40-bit words, used two 20-bit instructions per word, and each instruction had an eight-bit op-code and a 12-bit operand or address field. In general IAS-based computers were not code compatible with each other, although originally math routines which ran on the ILLIAC would also run on the Cyclone.
The IBM 700/7000 series is a series of large-scale (mainframe) computer systems that were made by IBM through the 1950s and early 1960s. The series includes several different, incompatible processor architectures. The 700s use vacuum-tube logic and were made obsolete by the introduction of the transistorized 7000s. The 7000s, in turn, were eventually replaced with System/360, which was announced in 1964. However the 360/65, the first 360 powerful enough to replace 7000s, did not become available until November 1965. Early problems with OS/360 and the high cost of converting software kept many 7000s in service for years afterward.
Herman Heine Goldstine was a mathematician and computer scientist, who worked as the director of the IAS machine at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study, and helped to develop ENIAC, the first of the modern electronic digital computers. He subsequently worked for many years at IBM as an IBM Fellow, the company's most prestigious technical position.
The ORACLE or Oak Ridge Automatic Computer and Logical Engine, an early computer built by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann.
SEAC was a first-generation electronic computer, built in 1950 by the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and was initially called the National Bureau of Standards Interim Computer, because it was a small-scale computer designed to be built quickly and put into operation while the NBS waited for more powerful computers to be completed. The team that developed SEAC was organized by Samuel N. Alexander. SEAC was demonstrated in April 1950 and was dedicated on June 1950; it is claimed to be the first fully operational stored-program electronic computer in the US.
Minimal instruction set computer (MISC) is a central processing unit (CPU) architecture, usually in the form of a microprocessor, with a very small number of basic operations and corresponding opcodes, together forming an instruction set. Such sets are commonly stack-based rather than register-based to reduce the size of operand specifiers.
Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers was a course in the construction of electronic digital computers held at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering between July 8, 1946, and August 30, 1946, and was the first time any computer topics had ever been taught to an assemblage of people. The course disseminated the ideas developed for the EDVAC and initiated an explosion of computer construction activity in the United States and internationally, especially in the United Kingdom.
The MANIAC III was a second-generation electronic computer, built in 1961 for use at the Institute for Computer Research at the University of Chicago.
The Atlas Computer was one of the world's first supercomputers, in use from 1962 until 1971. It was considered to be the most powerful computer in the world at that time. Atlas' capacity promoted the saying that when it went offline, half of the United Kingdom's computer capacity was lost. It is notable for being the first machine with virtual memory using paging techniques; this approach quickly spread, and is now ubiquitous.
The IBM Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) was a one-of-a-kind first-generation computer built by IBM for the United States Navy's Bureau of Ordnance. It went into service in December 1954 and was likely the most powerful computer at the time. The Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC), was built at the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory under the direction of Wallace Eckert.
The Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) was a leading U.S. Army research establishment situated at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland that specialized in ballistics as well as vulnerability and lethality analysis. BRL served as a major Army center for research and development in technologies related to weapon phenomena, armor, electronic devices, and high-speed computing. In 1992, BRL's mission, personnel, and facilities were incorporated into the newly created Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and BRL was disestablished.
The Monroe Calculating Machine Mark XI was a general-purpose stored-program electronic digital computer introduced in 1960 by the Monroe Calculating Machine Division of Litton Industries. The system was marketed for "primarily for billing, and invoice writing", but could also be used for low-end scientific computing.
Philco was one of the pioneers of transistorized computers. After the company developed the surface barrier transistor, which was much faster than previous point-contact types, it was awarded contracts for military and government computers. Commercialized derivatives of some of these designs became successful business and scientific computers. The TRANSAC Model S-1000 was released as a scientific computer. The TRANSAC S-2000 mainframe computer system was first produced in 1958, and a family of compatible machines, with increasing performance, was released over the next several years.
The Model V was among the early electromechanical general purpose computers, designed by George Stibitz and built by Bell Telephone Laboratories, operational in 1946.
