I was watching the show Mail Call. It talks of anything military. Guns, artillery, ships, whatever. The narrator claimed the first computer might've been on the USS Missouri. It aimed the guns on the ship. Is there such a thing as the first computer?
In WW2 there were electromechanical gun laying computers, the analog computer could continually integrate the position from radar data to get a target's velocity vector, and along with the range compute an appropriate gun super elevation.
Here's a video series that shows how they worked, the mechanical ball-integrator was an ingenious contraption:
Gunlaying analog computers go back to WW1. One of the reasons that the Battle of Jutland was a more even affair than expected was that more of the German ships had director gun laying than the British.
As you say, you first have to define what you are talking about.
"the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer" is how Wikipedia talks about Colossus. It was not a stored program computer, being programmed by switches and plugs.
Code breaking drove a branch of computing technology. Another branch that was also desperately needed in the war, was finding targeting solutions. I don't recall the name, but there was a computer designed to be airborne, that was pretty interesting. I can't seem to find it on the web. I thought it was WWII vintage and used rather archaic components like delay lines. Maybe not.
Yes, and it takes one to know one. God, you are such a downer. They won the f**king war. Why don't you use technology from the time and design one better.
I do remember seeing a radar synthetic aperture airborne computer on the bench when I visited RSRE, Malvern in the late 1970s. What was striking about it was the relatively small size along with the hose connectors for the cooling water.
I recall reading about submarine warfare in the Pacific. The boat had a gizmo, the "is was", which somehow computed the aim of the torpedo barrel. "the triangle of sub tactics"
The captain read the target's co-ordinates, through the periscope. Presumably the speed was simply dx/dt, probably timed with a wrist watch. Unclear how they estimated its range.
Speaking of horrendously poor accuracy the British Royal Air Force calculated that only 1% of their bombs landed within a mile of the intended target. I once met a RAF WW2 navigator/bomb aimer who said some nights their designated target was the letter "R" - meaning where R was within the word BERLIN on their charts. He later flew with Mosquito pathfinders using Gee/Oboe navaids and H2S RADAR so although his bomb placement improved he seriously doubted the accuracy of main force that followed.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.