ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of the origins of computing – from roomfuls of human computers, through the electromechanical (i.e. relay-based) and electronic computers of the pre-modern era, to the first modern electronic stored-program universal computers in the postwar years. We outline the early computational theories of mind that grew up around these pioneering machines, as well as the first attempts at artificial intelligence (called “machine intelligence” in those days).
