The chicken
and egg version of this question has been asked and discussed for years, and I
am not about to crack that question open and get egg on my face. But I do want
to take a look at the computer and the black hat hacker (aka security cracker),
and take you back in time to the first computer. So get ready to blast into the
past to uncover some fascinating facts about the first computers.
The computer
Let me take
you back to 1613.
1613!? You may
exclaim. Yes, I confidently tell you. 1613
This is the
first recorded use of the word “computer,” and it is “used to describe a person
who performed calculations or computations,” according to computerhope.com. It
wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that the term started
making the shift to machines.
The first
recorded machine computer was a mechanical computer created by Charles Babbage
in 1822 and was called the Difference Engine. The function of this “computer”
was to compute sets of numbers and print these results, but alas, the
Difference Engine was never completed due to a lack of funding. Think of the
advances in science that would have taken place earlier in the 20th
century if Charles Babbage got the funding he needed to finish the Difference
Engine.
But Charles
Babbage would not let a little funding stop him. He started work on another
machine, and in 1837, the Analytical Engine was born, making it the first
general-purpose computer concept. This engine was ground breaking with basic
flow control, an Arithmetic Logic Unit, and integrated memory. Yet again, money
stood in the way of technological advancement. The Analytical Engine was not
completely finished until Charles Babbage’s son, Henry, finished a portion of
his father’s machine. Henry’s completed version was able to perform basic
computer calculations in 1910.
1936 saw the
first electro-mechanical, binary, programmable computer from Konrad Zuse, a
German working out of his parent’s living room.
Also, Alan Turing released the Turing Machine. The Turing Machine
printed symbols in a manner that reflected human thought after receiving a set
of logical instructions.
Out of the
Second World War in 1943, Colossus was born. The Colossus is known as the first
electric programmable computer and was used by the British to decode German
encrypted messages.
The Atanasoff-Berry
Computer (ABC) developed by John Vincent Atanasoff and Cliff Berry in 1937 was
able to accomplish binary math and Boolean logic. In 1946, the ENIAC was
invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and was fully functional before
the ABC. A US judge in 1973 ruled that the patent for the first digital computer
belonged to Atanasoff, even though many believe to this day that it should have
gone to the ENIAC because it was the first to be fully functional.
From these
first creations of the mechanical and digital computers, we now have the
computers we enjoy today.
The black hacker
As discussed
in one of my previous articles, The
History of Hackers, the first recorded black hacking took place in 1870 by
a group of teenagers that hacked into the newly launched telephone system, and
the hacking, both black and white, has continued throughout history.
So let’s look
at the dates . . .
1822 is the
first recorded mechanical computer, and in 1870 is the first record of black
hacking. Making the answer to my question the computer.
But . . .
Many would say
that the first finished computer didn’t come until 1910, so the answer to that
question would be the black hacker.
Let’s take a
vote. Leave a comment stating which you believe came first and why.
The computer
or the hacker?
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