Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!warwick!cudat
From: cudat@warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: The Colossus computer
Message-ID: <658@sol.warwick.ac.uk>
Date: 4 Aug 88 14:49:34 GMT
Reply-To: cudat@warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks)
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK
Lines: 25

The following is taken from a letter to "Computer Talk":-

 ... The Colossus, built at Dollis Hill in London by T. H. Flowers
 and installed at Bletchley Park in 1943, beats the Eniac by three years.

 Neither machine was stored-program and neither machine was general-purpose.
 Colossus was for code-breaking, Eniac for ballistics ...

When someone says "X was the first computer", I never know whether it was
the first electronic computer, the first stored-program computer, the
first general-purpose computer or what, so perhaps the question is
meaningless.

However, since the Colossus was a British Government secret for thirty
years, many of the written histories of computing do not include it.
I mention it here to try to set the record straight (some time ago there
was a discussion about ENIAC).
--
J. M. Hicks (a.k.a. Hilary),
Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry, England. CV4 7AL
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