There’s been cited as calling in the computing world when discussing what was the very first computer invented.

For years, the accepted pioneer of the digital age was the ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, perhaps because tale became media frenzy associated with advancement was one worthy for tabloids and television.

As World War II was coming to a close, the Army had run in need of mathematicians and were willing to recruit women. Six women were accepted to function on “Project PX” at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering, under John Mauchly and K. Presper Eckert. The women’s job ended up program firing tables and ballistic trajectories using ENIAC. Their work laid the groundwork for computer programming. The completed machine was unveiled on Feb. 14, 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. The military had funded the price almost $500,000. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and InventHelp Reviews used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 a great deal. It is widely considered to because the first computer invented, considering its highly functional status along with the late 1950s.

However, its “first” status was challenged in court when Rand Corp. bought the ENIAC InventHelp Patent Services and started charging royalties. Honeywell Inc. refused to pay and challenged the patent in 1967. It was learned that Mauchly, technology one of the many leaders of the Project PX in the University of Pennsylvania, had seen an initial prototype of a tool being built at the Iowa State College called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry began development along at the ABC in 1937 and it always been developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). Eventually, it could solve equations containing 29 variables.

In 1973, You.S. Federal Judge Earl R. Larson released his decision how the ENIAC patent by Mauchly and Eckert was invalid along with the ABC was the first computer found. However, the ABC was never fully functional, so the popular opinion to this day has the ENIAC as the first electronic computing piece of equipment. The Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American History in Washington displays most of what remains of the ENIAC, alongside bits of the ABC.

However, there’s another twist to this tale. The most straightforward computer is an electronic digital device designed to just accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations and display the results. Germany’s Konrad Zuse created what was essentially the first programmable calculator in the mid-1930s in his parent’s living room. Zuse’s Z1 had 64-word memory and a clock speed of 1 Hz. Programming the the Z1 required the user to insert tape into a punch tape reader and then receive his results the punch tape dispenser – making it possibly the first computer invented.