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Konrad Zuse alone created the Z3, a computer capable of floating point binary arithmetic with 2,300 relays and a 22 bit character capacity. An invention of this scale by 1 man painted an early picture of the future of computers in the average citizen's life.
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The first of 10 computers designed by Tommy Flowers, this computer reduced the time to decode Nazi messages from weeks to hours and may have contributed to the results of the war.
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Invented by Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn, this was the first high-speed fully electronic memory, using cathode ray tubes as in CRT TVs. This storage revolution undoubtedly affected the future of computers as we know them.
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Fredric Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Toothill run the first program ever on a digital electronic stored-program computer, and on the first computer to use high-speed RAM no less. Obviously, electronic computer programs are essential to any modern technology, so this was a huge achievement.
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Developed by a group led by Jack Harrington, the modem allowed computers to communicate via regular phone lines, and paved the way for the modern day internet.