# History of "computer" in popular usage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 23, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206 "2011-12-23T18:51:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/1 "2011-12-23T18:51:32Z")
In the U.S., when would the average person on the street have recognized the word “computer” as referencing some kind of mechanical or electric device that does math or solves problems? They may not have ever seen a computer, have any clue how to use one or even where they might find one but they need to have some kind of nodding familiarity with the concept. It’s a fairly pointless question I know but I just finished a bit of fiction that suggests the word was in common usage in the late 1940s. By this time the “Colossus” computers in Britain and ENIAC in the U.S. had been busily crunching numbers for a few years and Babbage’s concept was over a century old. 1949 still seems a little early to me. If I had to guess I wouldn’t have expected the word “computer” to enter common usage before 1960. Any dopers care to weigh in on this? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/2 "2011-12-23T19:03:50Z")
According to the OED, “computer” goes back to the 17th Century. Its use as a mechanical device to do calculations has cites from 1869: > [@OED](#): > > 1. A device or machine for performing or facilitating calculation. > > 1869 ‘M. Harland’ Phemie’s Temptation i. 12 [Phemie] plunged anew into the column of figures‥. Her pen was slowly traversing the length of the page, at an elevation of a quarter of an inch above the paper, her eyes following the course of the nib, as if it were the index of a patent computer. > 1897 Engineering 22 Jan. 104/2 This was‥a computer made by Mr. W. Cox. He described it as of the nature of a circular slide rule. > 1915 Chambers’s Jrnl. July 478/1 By means of this computer the task is performed mechanically and almost instantaneously. Were these common usages? Depends on what you mean, but since the word existed for a couple of centuries before this, if you said you used a computer in 1900, everyone would know what you meant\> ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/3 "2011-12-23T19:16:33Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > According to the OED, “computer” goes back to the 17th Century. Its use as a mechanical device to do calculations has cites from 1869: > Were these common usages? Depends on what you mean, but since the word existed for a couple of centuries before this, if you said you used a computer in 1900, everyone would know what you meant\> They wouldn’t know what using a computer was because a computer referred to a person (often female) whose job it was to perform large numbers of calculations quickly and accurately. This was necessary in corporations but especially in the military to calculate things like artillery trajectories and even nuclear fission. It wasn’t until the ENIAC was built during WWII that ‘computer’ was used to refer to the machine. The people that had the previous job of ‘computer’ became the first computer programmers. I don’t know the exact year to give for the answer but it was between the late 1940’s and before 1965 when computers as devices were becoming more common in business, government, and military. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/4 "2011-12-23T19:39:15Z")
Off the top of my head, I recall an etymology that said that Johnathan Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_ mentions the navigator using a “computer” to mean a device for computing. And that’s the first time a device is a “computer.” As was mentioned above, before and since, the person performing the math manually was the “computer.” ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/5 "2011-12-23T19:44:44Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > Off the top of my head, I recall an etymology that said that Johnathan Swift’s _Gulliver’s Travels_ mentions the navigator using a “computer” to mean a device for computing. And that’s the first time a device is a “computer.” As was mentioned above, before and since, the person performing the math manually was the “computer.” I think you may be misremembering. The word “computer” doesn’t appear in [_Gulliver’s Travels_](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/829/829-h/829-h.htm). ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/6 "2011-12-23T20:25:15Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > They wouldn’t know what using a computer was because a computer referred to a person (often female) whose job it was to perform large numbers of calculations quickly and accurately. This was necessary in corporations but especially in the military to calculate things like artillery trajectories and even nuclear fission. It wasn’t until the ENIAC was built during WWII that ‘computer’ was used to refer to the machine. The people that had the previous job of ‘computer’ became the first computer programmers. > > I don’t know the exact year to give for the answer but it was between the late 1940’s and before 1965 when computers as devices were becoming more common in business, government, and military. You know, I gave some actual cites as to how the word was used to mean a device for doing computations. Note the second one, from 1897. And the third one, from 1915. It’s more than obvious that the meaning of “computers” as “machine to do computations” was known by that point. I can cite more, if you wish. Can you cite anything to back your claim? And, of course there were other areas that need computers than the military. Businesses needed to compute their profit and loss (obviously, they used people to do this, but adding machines were invented in the 17th century, and were widespread by the middle of the 19th). What happened, as is often the case, the mechanical adding machine computer of the 19th century became the electronic computer of the 20th. But the OP asked about common usage, and the first examples I gave in the OED was from a work of popular literature. It used “patent” to indicate a mechanical device, but that sort of adjective faded away. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/7 "2011-12-23T20:37:59Z")
Up until WWII, computer was in common use for almost any kind of calculating aid. The could be mechanical or they could be a dial or paper scale or slide rule-type object. [Here’s](http://books.google.com/books?id=VU4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA98&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DuX0TqLlJ4nX0QH3iaioAg&ved=0CFcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) a good example from Life magazine is 1942. People were not called computers in the 40s. That usage had stopped years earlier. Computers in the modern sense start being referred to after the war, and were well known by that name by 1950. Earlier machines that served the same purpose might be known as thinking machines or brains. You can check out Google Books and find many examples. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/8 "2011-12-23T20:41:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > You know, I gave some actual cites as to how the word was used to mean a device for doing computations. Note the second one, from 1897. And the third one, from 1915. It’s more than obvious that the meaning of “computers” as “machine to do computations” was known by that point. I can cite more, if you wish. Can you cite anything to back your claim? The question is about popular usage of the term ‘computer’ as a device among the general public, not earliest references.. It takes more than a cut and paste from a dictionary to answer the actual question and you didn’t do it either no matter how confidently you clicked the mouse. Everything I have read on this including things I looked up again in response to this question says that the machines were known as ‘calculating machines’, calculators, or something in reference to their actual use like ‘cash register’ before WWII. If you want to have an lazy cite war, I will counter yours with Wikipedia: “Before the development of the general-purpose computer, most calculations were done by humans. Mechanical tools to help humans with digital calculations were then called “calculating machines”, by proprietary names, or even as they are now, calculators. It was those humans who used the machines who were then called computers; there are pictures of enormous rooms filled with desks at which computers (often young women) used their machines to jointly perform calculations, as for instance, aerodynamic ones required for in aircraft design.” > **[History of computing hardware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware)** > > The history of computing hardware spans the developments from early devices used for simple calculations to today's complex computers, encompassing advancements in both analog and digital technology. > The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary arithmetic operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the result. In later stages, computing devices began representing numbers in continuous forms, such as ... ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/9 "2011-12-23T22:11:07Z")
In Isaac Asimov’s “The End of Eternity” (written in 1954) a “computer” is a person who does calculations - a mechanical device to aid in that effort is a “compuplex” (or some neologism like that). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/10 "2011-12-23T22:21:48Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > If you want to have an lazy cite war, I will counter yours with Wikipedia: How about real cites from contemporary works? As I said, go to Google Books and put in a custom range. My cite is, well, it’s an actual cite. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/11 "2011-12-23T22:33:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > How about real cites from contemporary works? > > As I said, go to Google Books and put in a custom range. My cite is, well, it’s an actual cite. I looked at Google books - in 1941, “Who’s Who in Engineering” lists people whose title is “Computer,” but there is also reference made to non-human computers, so there seems to have been some overlap of terminology ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/12 "2011-12-23T22:41:04Z")
I don’t have cites, just an impression that the term ‘computer’, referring to a machine, slowly worked it’s way into popular culture over a long time as more and more advanced machines were developed. When the ENIAC was developed in the 40s, it probably further popularized and solidified the concept, but based on an existing common understanding of what a computer was. Actually, here is a cite. The movie [Desk Set](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050307/)was released in 1957. The story centers around the use of computers to replace a TV network research department. I don’t recall many details, but the concept of a computer wasn’t presented as science fiction, or unfamiliar to the audience. So it certainly predated the 60s. Since the idea had been around in science fiction for a while, no later than 1940 when Asimov’s [Robbie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_(short_story)) was published, it seems that the concept was already entrenched prior to the development of the first electronic computers. As far as distinquishing between human and non-human computers, the definition is the same, it’s just applied to different types of ‘technology’. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/13 "2011-12-23T23:31:07Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Up until WWII, computer was in common use for almost any kind of calculating aid. The could be mechanical or they could be a dial or paper scale or slide rule-type object. [Here’s](http://books.google.com/books?id=VU4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA98&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DuX0TqLlJ4nX0QH3iaioAg&ved=0CFcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) a good example from Life magazine is 1942. People were not called computers in the 40s. That usage had stopped years earlier. > > Computers in the modern sense start being referred to after the war, and were well known by that name by 1950. Earlier machines that served the same purpose might be known as thinking machines or brains. > > You can check out Google Books and find many examples. I like your technique of determining this but I have some problems with some specific examples. Your linked Life magazine article talks about early mechanical aviation flight computers which are basically slide rules built for aviation calculations. They are still in use and I have one. The problem I see with that is that for the purposes of this question is that most people would not know what one is. They are still used by pilots and are still called ‘flight computers’ by some even though that is the only mechanical device that still retains the name that I know of. My point is that it was a divergent evolution of the same term that applies to one type of specialty devise and not mechanical computing devices in general. I have never heard an old people or an antique experts refer to old mechanical computing devices as computers either. They call them adding machines, registers, slide rules, etc. and not ‘computers’. That is important for determining the true question of how recognizable the term would be to the average person. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/14 "2011-12-23T23:38:11Z")
Did Charles Babbage call his inventions a computer? They were the closest things to modern computers in the 1800’s (if he could have built them). Not that I know of. They were ‘engines’. **Reality Chuck** says the term was widely available in the late 1800’s so that is puzzling. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/15 "2011-12-23T23:43:25Z")
I find a bunch of references in Google books to Cox and his computers. [Here’s one from 1898](http://books.google.com/books?id=Mg1OAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA4-PA31&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2BD1TqC4FML10gGGkcGzAg&ved=0CEwQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), listing an assortment of “mechanical computers” for sale. Now, whether this was niche usage or not, I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![TATG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@TATG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TATG)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/16 "2011-12-23T23:53:04Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Did Charles Babbage call his inventions a computer? They were the closest things to modern computers in the 1800’s (if he could have built them). Not that I know of. They were ‘engines’. **Reality Chuck** says the term was widely available in the late 1800’s so that is puzzling. Along these lines I was looking for Babbage and “computer” on google books. The Manchester Iris, 1822, in talking about Babbage’s machines notes that they could substitute for a computer (in the human doing sums sense). Which is pretty cool, but doesn’t answer the question. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/17 "2011-12-24T00:50:10Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I like your technique of determining this but I have some problems with some specific examples. Your linked Life magazine article talks about early mechanical aviation flight computers which are basically slide rules built for aviation calculations. They are still in use and I have one. The problem I see with that is that for the purposes of this question is that most people would not know what one is. They are still used by pilots and are still called ‘flight computers’ by some even though that is the only mechanical device that still retains the name that I know of. My point is that it was a divergent evolution of the same term that applies to one type of specialty devise and not mechanical computing devices in general. > > I have never heard an old people or an antique experts refer to old mechanical computing devices as computers either. They call them adding machines, registers, slide rules, etc. and not ‘computers’. That is important for determining the true question of how recognizable the term would be to the average person. Determining what the average person would know is tough. What concepts would we expect an average person to know today? Space elevators? Nanotechnology? Virtual reality? All we can go by is availability rather than knowledge. On that level, I think that it’s realistic to claim that a concept that was regularly being written about in popular science magazines was available for any average interested reader. Can we find that? Yes. Computers of the sort I’m talking about were in [Popular Mechanics in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=MNcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA55&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CFIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Science in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=wCcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA112&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CFsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Mechanics in 1940](http://books.google.com/books?id=hNkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT2&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CGMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Mechanics in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=S9YDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA81&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CIQBEOgBMAo#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), and Popular Science [three](http://books.google.com/books?id=gCcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA211&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJIBEOgBMA0#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) [more](http://books.google.com/books?id=-iYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA135&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJYBEOgBMA4#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) [times](http://books.google.com/books?id=WicDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA218&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJoBEOgBMA8#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) in 1942, not to mention [Life in 1942](http://books.google.com/books?id=AlEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CIABEOgBMAk#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) and [Billboard in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=uwwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT28&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CI4BEOgBMAw#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false). I stopped in 1943 and limited the hits solely to ones with full preview. Snippet view adds too many to handle. Words change over time, sometimes radically. Computer became a hot word after the war and older meanings were lost. There’s no firm fixed date at which such things happen. It’s all waxing and waning. Again, that’s just the word. The concept of artificial mechanical brains had been around for decades before Asimov and equally discussed in the popular magazines and newspapers. He invented the word robotics, but nothing else. He took all that from his everyday reading. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/18 "2011-12-24T01:23:11Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I looked at Google books - in 1941, “Who’s Who in Engineering” lists people whose title is “Computer,” but there is also reference made to non-human computers, so there seems to have been some overlap of terminology I searched for “assistant computer” figuring that I’d find people, not machines that way. Examples ["assistant computer" - Google Search](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22assistant%20computer%22&tbs=bks:1,cdr:1,cd_min:1947,cd_max:1959&lr=lang_en) talks about a person who was a computer in 1948 "Finley joined Conoco in 1948 as an assistant computer with a geophysical party. He served as computer and party chief in several states prior to his promotion in 1951 to geophysical supervisor at Oklahoma City. " This guide for college “girls” in 1956 ([The College Girl Looks Ahead to Her Career Opportunities - Marguerite Wykoff Zapoleon - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=Zpf-cBTE62UC&q=%22assistant+computer%22&dq=%22assistant+computer%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=zCj1ToDAJ4bs0gGei9WyAg&ved=0CH4Q6AEwCTgK)) cites “computer” as a possible profession. So based on this and Exapno Mapcase’s cites that by the 1940s people would have understood by context whether someone was talking about a human computer or a non-human computer, since both terms were in use until at least the late 50s. a ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/19 "2011-12-24T01:31:18Z")
As I recall, Babbage’s device was called an “analytical engine”. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206/20 "2011-12-24T02:16:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > On that level, I think that it’s realistic to claim that a concept that was regularly being written about in popular science magazines was available for any average interested reader. Can we find that? Yes. Computers of the sort I’m talking about were in [Popular Mechanics in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=MNcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA55&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CFIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Science in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=wCcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA112&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CFsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Mechanics in 1940](http://books.google.com/books?id=hNkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT2&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CGMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), [Popular Mechanics in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=S9YDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA81&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CIQBEOgBMAo#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false), and Popular Science [three](http://books.google.com/books?id=gCcDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA211&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJIBEOgBMA0#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) [more](http://books.google.com/books?id=-iYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA135&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJYBEOgBMA4#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) [times](http://books.google.com/books?id=WicDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA218&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CJoBEOgBMA8#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) in 1942, not to mention [Life in 1942](http://books.google.com/books?id=AlEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA65&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CIABEOgBMAk#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false) and [Billboard in 1943](http://books.google.com/books?id=uwwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT28&dq=computer&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Tx31TtuPOKbL0QGxsv3RAg&ved=0CI4BEOgBMAw#v=onepage&q=computer&f=false). I stopped in 1943 and limited the hits solely to ones with full preview. Snippet view adds too many to handle. I can easily believe the early to mid 1940’s but not earlier. Things were changing radically at that time on the technology front thanks to good old WWII and then great hope for the future. Shift that back a few years into the Great Depression and I don’t think the average person would know what a ‘computer’ is even as a potential breakthrough. Do we all concur? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-computer-in-popular-usage/607206.md?page=2)