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(CNC) Complex Number Calculator
Bell Telephone Laboratories completes this calculator, designed by scientist George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society conference. Stibitz stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype terminal connected to New York over special telephone lines. This is the first example of remote access computing. -
The first Bombe is Completed
Built as a way to decrypt the Nazi Enigma military communications, during WW2. Built by computer pioneer Alan Turing and Harold Keen. hundreds of Bombes where made to to determine daily rotor start positions of enigma cipher machines. To decrypt German messages. This turned the tide of the war. -
Harvard Mark 1
Made by IMB and Harvard physics professor Howard Aiken. The Harvard Mark 1 is a room-sized, relay-based calculator. The Mark 1 produced mathematical tables but was soon superseded by electronic stored-program computers. -
First Case of Bug Being Found
The word bug, when applied to computers, means some form of error or failure. On September 9th, Grace Hopper records what she jokingly called the first actual computer bug. A moth got stuck between relay contacts of the Harvard Mark II computer. -
MIT Magnetic Core Memory
While working on the Whirlwind project at MIT, Jay Forrester writes about a magnetic core memory system. This system was the first reliable high-speed random access memory for computers. Magnetic core memory was widely used as the main memory technology for computers well into the 1970s.
