Computers

Computers are amazing machines that can process information incredibly fast. They follow instructions called programs to do their work. Computers are in phones, cars, TVs, and even refrigerators. The first computers were as big as a room. Now a smartphone is more powerful than the computers that sent astronauts to the Moon.

How Computers Work

At the most basic level, computers work with just two numbers: 0 and 1. This is called binary code. Everything a computer does is broken down into combinations of zeros and ones. The processor, or CPU, is the brain that does the calculations. Memory stores information. The hard drive saves files for later.

A Brief History of Computers

The first electronic computer, called ENIAC, was built in 1945. It weighed 30 tons and filled an entire room. In the 1970s, personal computers became small enough for homes. The internet connected computers around the world in the 1990s. Today, a single smartphone chip has more computing power than all the computers in the world had in 1970.

Fun Facts

• The first computer bug was an actual bug. A moth was found stuck in a computer in 1947.
• There are about 5 billion internet-connected devices in the world.
• A modern smartphone is millions of times more powerful than the computers that guided the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.

Did You Know?

The first computer programmer was a woman named Ada Lovelace. In the 1840s, she wrote instructions for a mechanical computer called the Analytical Engine. She realized that computers could do more than just math, and she is considered the world's first computer programmer!