Q: (Initially posted on December 12, 2002) FROM MENTEE LAUREN S. IN CT
Who invented the first computer, and what was it like?

December 13, 2002
A: FROM MENTOR KRISTIN CASTERTON IN CO
The first digital computer was invented by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry--the following link has more information and links about what this computer was like as well as pictures.
http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml

However, they had to stop their work on the computer in 1941 when World War II began. I know this because I spent a majority of my time at college in a building named after Atanasoff!

The site called A Journey through the History of Information Technology (Chapter 8, First Generation Computers, specifically) <http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~kguinee/thesis.html> explains more about what the first computers were like--there was no disk and you programmed it by feeding it with punched cards.