Comparison To Other Early Computers
If the Analytical Engine had been built, it would have been digital, programmable and Turing-complete. However, it would have been very slow. Ada Lovelace reported in her notes on the Analytical Engine: "Mr. Babbage believes he can, by his engine, form the product of two numbers, each containing twenty figures, in three minutes". By comparison the Harvard Mark I could perform the same task in just six seconds. A modern PC can do the same thing in well under a millionth of a second.
| Name | First operational | Numeral system | Computing mechanism | Programming | Turing complete |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analytical Engine | Never built | Decimal | Mechanical | Program-controlled by punched cards | Yes |
| Zuse Z3 (Germany) | May 1941 | Binary floating point | Electro-mechanical | Program-controlled by punched 35 mm film stock (but no conditional branch) | Yes (1998) |
| Atanasoff–Berry Computer (US) | 1942 | Binary | Electronic | Single purpose; not programmable | No |
| Colossus Mark 1 (UK) | February 1944 | Binary | Electronic | Program-controlled by patch cables and switches | No |
| Harvard Mark I – IBM ASCC (US) | May 1944 | Decimal | Electro-mechanical | Program-controlled by 24-channel punched paper tape (but no conditional branch) | No |
| ENIAC (US) | July 1946 | Decimal | Electronic | Program-controlled by patch cables and switches | Yes |
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