The word computer was first used in the early nineteenth century to describe human beings who were employed in the computation of mathematical tables for use by scientists and the Admiralty.
One such human computer, William Shanks, devoted his life to calculating the value of Pi to 707 decimal places. As William worked at the task his divisions became longer and more arduous. Unfortunately at the 528 decimal place William made an error in his calculations and thus the last 179 decimal places and 10 years of his work were incorrect and completely wasted.
ENIAC a
thirty ton, eighty feet long ' electronic brain ' cost $ 500,000
and was finished in November 1945.
The
machine was used to produce
mathematical
models for the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb, required by the
Los Alamos research laboratory With a central processor running
at 100,000 hertz the machine was only one sixth hundred and
sixtieth as fast as a modern DX2-66 desktop personal
computer.
To
program ENIAC to produce a different calculation required the
system to be completely rewired using an army of personnel and
hundreds of jackplugs of the type used in old fashioned telephone
exchanges. This process could take up to three days to complete. 
On live TV on the evening of the 1952 USA presidential election, a UNIVAC computer, installed for a publicity stunt, predicted a final landslide result, totally at odds with the expected outcome.
In
embarrassment the shows producers turned the machine off and
surpressed the machines prediction from the audience. When voting
results began to pour into the studio it became apparent that
UNIVAC had been correct all along. This caused CBS comme
ntator
Ed Murrow to publicly state, " the trouble with machines is
people ".
The worlds first minicomputer kit, the Altair 8800 was named after the destination in a Star Trek episode.
The Computer Industry
According to EDIT
The EDIT Team shed light on some of those mysterious acronyms
so widely loved by the technical boffins.
PCMCIA - People Can’t Mmorise Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN - It Still Does Nothing
SCSI - System Can’t See It
DOS - Defective Operating System
IBM - I Blame Microsoft
CD-ROM - Consumer Device Rendered Obsolete in Months
WWW - World Wide Wait
MIPS - Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
Breakout!
