Who made a prognosis of the future of computers in the first half of 20th century?

September 9, 2009 1:00 AM

In the first half of the 20th century groups of scientists in United States created the first electronic computers, fitting big halls, they needed permanent assistance because of overheating and continuous repair. The price of the construction and the maintenance was probably huge. Having such a thing was expensive, it seemed to be probably a luxury what only very very few countries could afford at that time. BUT, there was a scientist who prognosed that at the end of the 20th century every country in the world will be able to afford such a machine. He was obviously true. Now every country has at least one computer. My question(s): Who was this person? Where and when did he told what he told? And the exact citation would be appreciated. I am very sure it was he, the club of computers was filled by gentlemen at this time I think. I don't know whether it was Neumann or someone else. Please help, I am very curious about this. I did not find the answer by myself, for sure you all now more. Thanks!

I am a bit confused where to put my question. Category computers & Internet or ... society & culture is I think closer to a question what I would put to category History, if it would exist here. Computers & Internet is about different things as I see. Hopefully the choice society & culture fits well.

posted by fifigyuri to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

Well, there is that (apparently false) quote from Thomas J. Watson saying "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" but it would be hard to know who was the first person to suggest that a lot of people would have computers. I don't think they were that expensive to build. There is a replica of the Atanasoff Berry computer which was one of the first ever made. In fact it was the first electronic digital computer. It was built by two people for around $5000 (there were two grants, one was $5k) in today's money that would only be about $74,000.
posted by delmoi at 1:25 AM on September 9, 2009

Sorry, I meant to say there is a replica of the Atanasoff Berry computer at ISU in Duhram Hall at ISU, where I had a bunch of classes. It's only about the size of, well I guess a refrigerator (but wider and less tall) here's a picture
posted by delmoi at 1:31 AM on September 9, 2009

Possibly Vannevar Bush? His 1945 article "As We May Think" is pretty much a prediction of the Internet.
posted by zompist at 1:35 AM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

In the first half of the 20th century groups of scientists in United States

Ignoring the Germans and the British, are we? :)

I don't think they were that expensive to build.

Well, the IBM 701 Watson was talking about in the Wikipedia article cost $230,000 in 1961 (for the CPU only).

The Atanasoff Berry machine was innovative, but it was still a single purpose computer that only solved a part of the problem it was designed for. And it's far from clear to me that the cost of building that piece of hardware would have been equal to the second, non-government grant...
posted by effbot at 2:00 AM on September 9, 2009

And it's far from clear to me that the cost of building that piece of hardware would have been equal to the second, non-government grant

Uh yeah, but I was assuming the two grants were around the same order of magnitude.
posted by delmoi at 2:03 AM on September 9, 2009

Interesting, though, that if you consider 'computer' to be a machine that is programmable & and Turing-complete, you're only looking at a space of ~10 years between the first such computer (Z3, 1941) and the first business machine (LEO 1, 1951).

If the Germans, US, and Britain could have computers during the war, and a catering company could have their own computer running valuations & payroll in 1951-2, it doesn't take much prescience to predict 1 per country. So I'd expect the citation you're after, if it isn't apocryphal or a mis-remembering of the Watson 'quote', to pre-date WWII.
posted by Pinback at 2:22 AM on September 9, 2009