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There's more info about Colossus here, where they make the obvious point that "The question of what is the worlds first computer is less a question of history than a question of definition."

My personal vote goes to the "Manchester Baby", which has an extensive homepage all to itself.

Of course, Babbage can claim not only to have invented the first computer, but also the first printer - they're in the process of building it at the Science Museum in London (UK) right now. No reference to it on their web page, unfortunately.

Weren't the Mark 1 and it's forerunner the "Small-Scale Experimental Machine" (SSEM) build at the University of Manchester, England? Here's a link with some substantion.

Speaking of the first stored-program computer, turns out I have a connection to it I didn't know about. It turns out that both Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams, who built the Mark I, worked (and first met) at TRE, the Telecommunications Research Establishment (actually, they did radar research) in Malvern. Which happens to be where my parents worked (and first met) during the same period, my dad also doing radar research.

I guess I come from a long line of nerds :-)

Speaking of the first stored-program computer, turns out I have a connection to it I didn't know about. It turns out that both Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams, who built the Mark I, worked (and first met) at TRE, the Telecommunications Research Establishment (actually, they did radar research) in Malvern. Which happens to be where my parents worked (and first met) during the same period, my dad also doing radar research.

I guess I come from a long line of nerds :-)

Okay, the reason I put the word "allegedly" into my story quote is because I expected there to be some considerable disagreement about which was the "first" computer. Particularly since Germany, France, the UK and the USA all claim this honour (plus a few others I expect).

The problem is: what is a computer? Do you mean a calculator? So does an abacus count? Something that runs a program? So does a weaving loom count? Something electronic that runs a program? So does a washing machine count? Something digital? Something that has a modifyable program? Something that stores its program in the same way as its data?

As you can see, there are many definitions of "computer". Stop bickering!

And to add to that, early computers were often an international effort. Certianly Bletchley Park relied heavily on US involvement towards the end of the war.

That doesn't detract from the fact that Bletchley Park was a major contributor to both cryptography and modern computing.

Anyway, here's a few more British historical computing links for those who like nostaligia. If anyone would like to add some links to sites about other historical computers- of any nation- I'd be most interested.

Colossus I
The LEO - Lyons Electric Office (my dad worked on this)
The WITCH (my dad worked on this, too!)
The Baby

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