Uninformed researchers of computer (computador) history would probably note the first computer in the mid 1930`s. In reality, this history dates nearly 2000 years ago with the invention of the abacus where the user programmed beads using formulated constructs.
Although many historians caution against the use of the word computer (computador) except to define 20th century computers, a broader understanding illuminates an instrument designed by a Frenchman and which functioned as a calculator and was designed for a tax collector in the 1600`s. Improvements to this calculator continued through the 19th century.
Similar work was underway in England and with the support of the government a `mechanical` calculator was invented. It was powered by steam and supported a fixed program for its use. This calculator went through many changes until an automatic calculator was invented. Following this flurry of discovery and invention, little changed until the early 1900`s when detailed mechanical and transportation work required complex mathematical calculations (especially calculus).
Two Census Bureau workers began to look for a means of accurately calculating...