Table of Contents
For Students
computer: Media
Videos
Learn about quantum computers.
Video: Contunico © ZDF Studios GmbH, Mainz
Walter Isaacson discussing the life and impact of Ada Lovelace.
Video: © World Science Festival (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
An overview of Colossus, the world's first large-scale electronic computer.
Video: © Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Learn about the Elliott 803, a transistorized computer made in the United Kingdom...
Video: © Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Learn about the ICL 2966, a mainframe computer utilizing integrated circuit technology,...
Video: © Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Learn about the BBC Micro, a microcomputer made in the 1980s by Acorn Computers,...
Video: © Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
From devices that enable monkeys to control robotic arms with their minds to neural...
Video: Science in Seconds (www.scienceinseconds.com) (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Learn about a computer algorithm that can distinguish between smiles that express...
Video: © Massachusetts Institute of Technology (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Images
A personal computer and its peripherals.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors on a computer chip was doubling...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The DVD player uses a laser that is higher-powered and has a correspondingly finer...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Color inkjet printers can produce nearly any color by simultaneously heating and...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Simple bus networks, such as Ethernet, are common for home and small office configurations....
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
A reproduction of Wilhelm Schickard's Calculating Clock. The device could add and...
The Computer Museum of America
The Arithmetic Machine, or Pascaline, a French monetary (nondecimal) calculator...
Courtesy of the Computer Museum History Center
A reproduction of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz's Step Reckoner, from the original...
IBM Archives
Jacquard loom, engraving, 1874. At the top of the machine is a stack of punched cards...
The Bettmann Archive
The completed portion of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine, 1832. This advanced...
Science Museum London
A portion (completed 1910) of Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Only partially...
Science Museum London
This cover of Scientific American, August 30, 1890, displays various aspects...
IBM Archives
Vannevar Bush with his Differential Analyzer, c. 1935.
MIT Museum
Designed by Howard Aiken, this electromechanical computer, more than 15 meters (50...
IBM Archives
Clifford Berry and the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. The ABC, c. 1942, was possibly the...
Iowa State University Photo Service
The Colossus computer at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, England, c. 1943. Funding...
Geoff Robinson Photography/Shutterstock.com
The Manchester Mark I, the first stored-program digital computer, c. 1949.
Reprinted with permission of the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Eng.
Tom Kilburn standing beside the console of the Ferranti Mark I computer, c. 1950.
Reprinted with permission of the Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Eng.
The EDSAC computer, 1947, with designer Maurice Wilkes (kneeling in the center of...
Courtesy of the Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
Relatively inexpensive, compact, and easy to operate, the IBM 650 quickly became...
IBM Archives
Steve Jobs (right) and Steve Wozniak holding an Apple I circuit board, c. 1976....
Courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.
The Xerox Alto was the first computer to use graphical icons and a mouse to control...
Courtesy of Xerox
Douglas Engelbart invented the computer mouse in 1963–64 as part of an experiment...
Courtesy of the Bootstrap Institute
The IBM Personal Computer (PC) was introduced in 1981. Microsoft supplied the machine's...
IBM Archives
Compaq Computer Corporation introduced the first IBM-compatible portable computer...
Courtesy of Compaq Computer Corp.
Introduced in March 1997, the Palm Pilot personal digital assistant (PDA) was equipped...
Courtesy of 3Com Corporation
The BlackBerry personal digital assistant (PDA), manufactured by the Canadian company...
PRNewsFoto/Verizon Wireless/AP Images
LG enV2 telephone by Verizon Wireless featuring a music player, games, mobile messaging,...
Verizon Wireless/PRNewsFoto/AP Images
A detail of the Intel Desktop Board D915GUX. The primary circuit board connects all...
Copyright Intel Corporation
A school computer lab, its computers linked into a local area network (LAN) to allow...
© Brand X Pictures/Jupiterimages
Students using computers in a classroom.
© BananaStock
The basic organization of a computer.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Interactives
Explore more about computers and technology in Britannica's 21st-Century Technology...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc
VIEW MORE in these related Britannica articles:
