It was invented originally to computer trajectories for artillery for the military. Read "Cryptonomicon" by Neil Stephenson.
1930's with vacuum tubes. NOT during the space program. At least, how we know them.
"A succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features of modern computers, such as the use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937)[3] and more flexible programmability. Defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is exceedingly difficult. Notable achievements include the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1937), a special-purpose machine that used valve-driven (vacuum tube) computation, binary numbers, and regenerative memory; the secret British Colossus computer (1944), which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of valves could be made reliable and reprogrammed electronically; the Harvard Mark I, a large-scale electromechanical computer with limited programmability (1944); the decimal-based American ENIAC (1946) — which was the first general purpose electronic computer, but originally had an inflexible architecture that meant reprogramming it essentially required it to be rewired; and Konrad Zuse's Z machines, with the electromechanical Z3 (1941) being the first working machine featuring automatic binary arithmetic and feasible programmability."
ENIAC was the biggest leap.
2006-07-07 15:56:50
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answer #1
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answered by Ryan H 2
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Because people were sitting around bored and wanted to be able to access the Internet and e-mail so they decided to invent the computer.
Actually, it began the 1950's after the Russians successfully launch the first satellite, Sputnik. America felt a need to get ahead of the Russians in the race to space. To do that, they need computer technology. It unable America to place the first men on the moon within a decades time, and revolutionized the world.
In the process, they invented things like the calculator and the transistor radio that began to get computer technology into peoples homes and businesses. And it grew from there.
2006-07-07 15:57:11
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answer #2
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answered by dewcoons 7
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There was no specific rule on them, they were tools to be used by anyone the same as a hammer, saw, etc. FWIW in college I read one old newspaper article that said some evangelical christians in the late 1900s thought that the invention of dynamite was a sign of the coming apocalypse. So in some ways the creation of new and more powerful weapons might have been interpreted religiously on an individual level.
2016-03-26 21:04:56
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answer #3
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answered by ? 4
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To get our astronauts to the Moon (in 1969)
2006-07-07 15:57:13
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answer #4
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answered by DR 3
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tahts like asking why was the toilet or refridgerator invented.
so our live could be easier
2006-07-07 15:55:50
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answer #5
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answered by gomorgango 3
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