How Much Memory Did the First Computers Have?
Memory is the lifeblood of many computers manufactured today. The Operating Systems and other applications created to enhance user experience and provide instant access to word processing and Internet browsers require increasing amounts of memory to create the user experience to which many of us are accustomed. This was not always the case; however, the first computers were often very large and had minimal processing capability. The input mechanism was a series of paper cards which the user had to punch holes in to represent the data the computer was to process. These early computers were built to work on specific problems or solve certain types of equations and not much more. The first computers used punch cards for input and had very limited memory for processing. The average memory in the first computers was between three and forty five kilobits. Memory was used to store data in the processing of linear equations, and the results were then printed in binary. When compared to the com
