However, a review of the Third Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) [Oxford
English Dictionary, August 2024,
[www.oed.com/dictionary/computer-n?tab=meaning_and_use#861811 1] states that the
word ‘computer’ was first recorded as used in the year 1613 by Richard
Braithwaite with the meaning “One who computes; a calculator, reckoner; spec.
a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying,
etc.” [Bold Italics added for emphasis].
According to the same OED entry [ibid.]
the first use of the word ‘computer’ to refer to a device to perform
computations, as opposed to a person, was in 1869 in a novel by M. Harland, in
Pemie's Temptation. In this work, Harland refers to a "patent computer". The use
of the word 'patent' as an adjective in this context, clearly, has the meaning
“easily recognizable; obvious” and was not referring to a mechanical device.
This is similar to the use of the term “patently false” with the meaning of
“obviously false”. Therefore, the term ‘patent computer’ was being used with the
meaning of “a person exhibiting the characteristics of a professional computer”
(i.e., a person). Hence, this use of the word “computer” in 1869 was not
referring to a machine at all!
Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that
anyone else picked up on this sense of the word as a ‘mechanical computational
device’ until William Cox did in the 1890s, more than twenty years later. Of
course, the OED [ibid.] also references an appearance of the word ‘computer’ on
22 January 1897, in Engineering [Note: A London, UK Publicaton] 104/2, quoting,
“This was a computer made by Mr. W. Cox. He described it as of the nature of a
circular slide rule.” Thus, according to the OED, William Cox was the neologist
who used the term ‘computer’ when referring to a device that performed
computation on that date.
However, the evidence is now clear that the OED was
also incorrect by at least five years here. As far as we now know, William
Cox named his circular computing devices ‘computers’ in 1892 for his “Electric
Wire Computer” [in The Electrical Engineer, Aug. 10, 1892, p. 139], and we also
know that he registered his company “Cox Computer Company” in New Jersey, US in
1893, specifically for manufacturing and selling devices that perform
computations of various types in a similar manner.
Of note, in 1891 he describes
these devices as “calculators,” so, it is safe to assume that the first year of
use of the term 'computer' by Cox was in 1892. Hence, we conclude that William Cox is
the pioneer of the term ‘computer’ in referring to a device that performs
computations, and that he did so as early as 1892.
We additionally note that in
1895, “The Cox Computer Company has recently been organized for the purpose of
manufacturing and introducing the various forms of mechanical computers designed
by Mr. William Cox of Stapleton, N.Y., where the company will have its
headquarters until removal to New York City. [Note: This refers to the
registration of the company in New York State as a foreign entity two years
after his registration in New Jersey.] The scale upon which operations will be
conducted and the number of new applications that will be made, such as power
transmissions of belting, gears, etc. is said by the parties to warrant a
material reduction in price and choice of style and material. A circular has
been issued announcing these innovations.” [Progressive Age, Vol. 13, no. 23,
Dec. 2, 1895, p. 583, Progressive Publishing, New York.
google.com/books/edition/Gas_Age/dPI9AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
&dq=%22progressive+age%22+computer+1895&pg=PA583&printsec =frontcover].
Cox’s
groundbreaking innovations have had a profound and lasting impact on technology.
While Cox was not the first to make a device that computed mathematical
functions, nor the first to try to come up with a term to describe a device that
does mathematical computation, his terminology is the one that has endured to
this day.
Other examples of attempted naming of such devices during the 19th
Century were:
- In 1822 and again in 1837 Charles Babbage devised, first, the Difference Engine, and then the Analytical Engine.
- In 1857 Orlando L. Castle and Thomas Hill developed devices they called an Arithmometer.
- From the 1850s to the 1870s there were many inventions called Computing or Calculating Machines by Parmalee, Smith, Alexander, Rowland, Davies, Mendenhall, Groesbeck, Grant, Robjack, Spaulding, and Baldwin, to mention a few.
- In 1880 Herman Hollerith devised the Tabulator which was eventually used to perform the 1890 census and evolved after the turn of the century into the IBM Corp.
- In 1884 the French engineer Philbert Maurice d'Ocagne (1862–1928) devised a graphical calculating device that was called either a nomograph, alignment chart, or abac. These devices were two-dimensional diagrams designed to allow the approximate graphical computation of a mathematical function.
- In 1887 Dorr Felt, filed a patent for the Comptometer, the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator. The success of the Comptometer caused others to call their computational devices “comptometers”, much like the term "Xerox" is used for a copier.
- In 1892, Walter Hart published a book "The Equationor or the Universal Calculator" within which he describes a circular slide rule to perform computations.
Yet, the term to describe automated devices that perform
computations is ‘computer’, the term coined by Cox. This fact, in no way,
detracts from the contributions of other early computer pioneers, including
Turing and von Neumann.
It is curious to note that in the mammoth undertaking by
Herman Goldstine in his book “The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann”
[Goldstine, Herman, The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann, Princeton
University Press, 1972, 378pp.] there is only a passing, one-line reference to
William Oughtred for inventing the slide rule on page 4, and no mention,
whatsoever, of William Cox, who coined the term ‘computer’ itself! So, to all
those interested in the history of computers, while you might have thought that
it had been 127 years since the computer was invented, you can be rest assured that, as of
today, the computer is really five years older -- 132 years! A quantum leap, indeed!
