Bitscoper Gallery of Historic Technologies

It is the 1^st programmable, automatic digital computer. It was a German electro-mechanical universal Turing-complete computer which was designed by scientist Konrad Zuse and was completed in Berlin, Germany in 1941.

It weighted 2200 pounds and consumed 4 kW power. It contained 2600 relays (1400 for memory). Its clock speed was 5.3 Hz. It was destroyed on 21 December, 1943 duing the World War II.

It is the 1^st automatic electronic digital computer. It was built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry of Lowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Lowa, USA (then Lowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts) and was released in 1942. This computer was neither programmable, nor Turing-complete and was designed only to solve the systems of linear equations.

It weighted 320 kG. Its used IBM 80-column punched cards as input devices and 300 vacuum tubes as CPU (Central Processing Unit). Its clock speed was 60 Hz. Its regenerative capacitive memory was of 3000 bits which was made of a pair of 1600 capacitors-containing drums. It also contained 208 dual triode vacuum tubes, 31 thyratrons and approximately 1.6 km of wires.

It is the 1^st general purpose automatic electronic digital computer. It was designed by scientist John William Mauchly and John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. It started operations on 10 December, 1945. It was used to calculate firing tables for United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL), USA. Its 1^st programme was to calculate feasibility of thermonuclear weapons. It was formally dedicated at University of Pennsylvania, USA on 15 February, 1946.

Its area was 167 m² and weighted 27 tons and and consumed 150 kW power. It contained 20000 vacuum tubes, 70000 resistors, 7200 crystal diodes, 1500 relays, 10000 capacitors and approximately 5000000 hand-soldered joints. It was finally shut down in 1956.

It is the 1^st electronic digital stored-programme computer. It is also the 1^st machine which contained all essential elements of a modern computer. It was also called Small-Scale Experiment Machine (SSEM). It was developed by scientist Frederic Calland Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff C. Tootill at University of Manchester, Manchester, UKE. Its 1^st programme was ran on 21 June, 1948.

It weighted 1 ton and consumed 3.5 kW power. Its length and height was 5.2 m and 2.24 m repectively. It contained 300 diodes, 250 pentodes and 550 vacuum tube valves. Its RAM (Random Access Memory) was of 32 32-bit words (~ 1 kB). It used a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) as output display.

It is the 2^nd electronic digital stored-programme computer for regular service. It was built by scientist Maurice Wilkes and his team at Department of Computer Science and Technology (then Mathematical Laboratory), University of Cambridge, UKE. It started operations on 6 May, 1949. Its 1^st programme was to calculate a table of square numbers and a list of prime numbers.

It consumed 11 kW power. It used 5-hole punched tape as input device, derated vacuum tubes as CPU (Central Processing Unit) and teleprinter as display. Its memory was of 512 18-bit words which was made of mercury delay lines. It was finally shut down on 11 July, 1958.

It is the 1^st fully operational stored-programme electronic digital computer. It was built by scientist Samuel N. Alexander and his team at United States National Bureau of Standards (NBS), USA. It was demonstrated in April, 1950 and was dedicated in June, 1950. This computer was initially called NBS Interim Computer.

Its central machine weighted 3000 pounds. It contained 747 vacuum tubes (expanded to 1500), 10500 germanium diodes (expanded to 16000). Its clock rate was 1 MHz. Its memory was of 512 45-bit words which was made of 64 acoustic delay lines. It was finally shut down in 1964.

It is the 1^st business purpose American electronic digital computer. It was principally designed by the ENIAC inventors. Designing was started by the inventors' Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), USA and was completed by Remington Rand Corporation, USA. It was released on 31 March, 1951 as the 1^st unit was accepted by United States Census Bureau, USA. Total 46 units were sold. The 5^th unit was used by Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), USA to predict the result of the 1952 Presidential Election of USA.

It weighted 7.6 tons and consumed 125 kW. Its area was 35.5 m². It contained 5000 vacuum tubes. Its clock speed was 2.25 MHz. It used Remington Standard electric typewriter as an input device and Tektronix Oscilloscope as an output device.

It is the 1^st Swedish computer. It was developed by Swedish Board for Computing Machinery, Sweden and was completed in 1953.

It consumed 15 kVA. It contained 400 germanium diodes and 2400 vacuum tubes. Its electrostatic memory was of 512 40-bit words which was made of Williams tubes (later replaced by ferrite core memory). It was once used to create an animation of a car driving down a planned highway from the driver's perpective and that clip was one of the earlist computer animations. This computer was finally shut down in 1966.

Scientist Thomas Alva Edison invented phonograph / gramophone in 1877.

Scientist Thomas Alva Edison invented light bulbs. His 1^st successful test was on 22 October, 1879 and that bulb lasted 13.5 hours. His early light bulbs were made of carbon filaments and used DC (Direct Current) electricity.

Scientist Alexander Graham Bell invented telephone.

Bangladeshi (then British-Indian) scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose invented radio system. He is called Father Of The Radio worldwide.

The radio receiver which works on the power of received signal only and does not need other power source is called Crystal Radio. As it uses crystal detector to receive signal, it is called so. It is also called Batteryless Radio.

The radio receiver which uses transistor-based circuitry is called Transistor-Radio.

Scientist John Logie Baird invented both television camera and television set. Those early inventions were electro-mechanical.

Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in vehicles. Scientist Martin Cooper invented handheld cellular mobile phone at Motorola Incorporate, USA in 1973. It was marketed in 1983 as Motorola DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) 8000X.

It is a passive electromagnetic device that transforms AC (Alternating Current) electricity.

It is a long-distance texual messenging system using symbolic codes.

Galvanometer is an electromagnetic measurement device used to measure electricity.

Bangladeshi (then British-Indian) scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose, the Father Of The Radio, invented the system of telecommunication which uses millimeter wavelengths. It is called Microwave (M/W). He also invented Crystal Radio Detector, Horn Antenna, Waveguide and other appartus which were used at microwave frequencies. He used a Galena Crystal Detector and Galvanometer to detect micrtowaves.

It is a semiconductor electronic device used to amplify or to switch electronic signals / electrical power.

Scientist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld proposed the concept of Field Effect Transistor (FET) in 1925. Scientist John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain invented Point-Contact Transistor at Bell Labs in 23 December, 1947. They also Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) in 1948.

It is a hyperbolic radio navigation system which was developed in USA. It was used on ships and aircrafts operating in the Pacific Theater during the World War II.

It used Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) as display.

It was a mechanical calculator which was developed by scientist Curt Herzstark. It was also known as Pepper Mill, Pepper Grinder and Math Granade due to its shape, operation and resemblance. It fitted in the palm of a hand. It was last produced in 1972.

It had a crank which was used to drive it. Numbers were entered using slides. A single turn of the crank performs addition. Pulling the crank upwards slightly before turning performs subtraction. Multiplication, division and other functions require a series of crank and carriage-shifting operations.

It was a set of British electronic digital programmable computers which were developed by scientist Tommy Harold Flowers, Sidney Broadhurst, William Chandler and Allen William Mark (Doc) Coombs and was manufactured by Post Office Research Station, UKE in around 1943-1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. It was neither stored-programmed, nor had any memory or RAM. It was programmed by plugs and switches.

It consumed 8.5 kW power. It used thermionic vacuum tube valves, thyratrons, relays and stepping switches as CPU (Central Processing Unit). It used paper tape as input device. It used indicator lamp panel display and electric typewriter as output device. It was discontinued in 1960. Total 12 units were used.

It was an early vacuum-tube computer which was developed by scientist Harry Douglas Huskey and was manufactured by Computer Division, Bendix Corporation, Los Angeles, California, USA in 1956. It was a serial-architecture machine and also had Intercom Interpretive System.

It weighted 438 kG. Its dimension was 1.5 m X 1 m X 1 m. Its drum memory was of 2160 29-bit words. It contained 300 germanium diodes and 450 vacuum tubes. Its average memory access time was 14.5 ms. It used photo-electric paper tape reader as input device and typewriter as primary output device. Its marketing was discontinued in 1963. Total 400 units were sold.