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The first concept of a computer dates back to around 500 B.C., when it was known as an Abacus. It was a calculator using beads, created in Babylonia.
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It was a calculator made of wheels and cogs. It worked when the wheel made one revolution, the tens place would increase.
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Charles Babbage spent over 40 years thinking about and engineering the first computer, but never completed it. His idea was an "analytical engine" using over 50,000 moving parts.
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In the 1880s, Herman Hollerith created a calculating machine that used an electrical circuit. And in 1890, the census took 6 weeks, and a full-scale analysis of the data took 2.5 years.
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Vannevar Bush, in the 1920s-1930s, created an analog computer that was capable of solving advanced mathematical formulas.
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From 1939 to 1942, American physicists John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry built a computer based on the binary numbering system. It is often credited as the first electronic digital computer.
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