Electronic Digital Computers

• In order to better solve mathematical equations for aiming artillery shells, the U.S. military invested heavily in computer technology. With the help of military money, in 1944 IBM and Harvard collaborated to make the Mark I. This was the first programmable electronic digital computer created. However, it was not purely electrical. It relied on switches, relays, rotating shafts and clutches. It weighed 5 tons and used 500 miles of wire. It employed binary code, a system of 1s and 0s. This is the same basis for digital technology today.