A.S. Douglas invented the first graphical computer game - a version of Tic-Tac-Toe in 1952 as part of his PhD thesis. .

The earliest known interactive electronic game was by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann on a cathode ray tube. The patent was filed on January 25, 1947 and issued on December 14, 1948. The game was a missile simulator inspired by radar displays from World War II. It used analog circuitry, not digital, to control the CRT beam and position a dot on the screen. Screen overlays were used for targets since graphics could not be drawn at the time

Tic-Tac-Toe in 1952

Unfortunately this question has no easy answer because of all the different types of classifications and types of computers. Therefore this document has been created with a listing of each of the first computers starting with the first programmable computer leading up to the computers of today. Keep in mind that early inventions such as the abacus, calculators, tablet machines, difference machine, etc. are not accounted for in this document.

First programmable computer

The Z1 originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer.

See our Z1 dictionary definition for additional information about this computer.

The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to be developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State Universit ...more