What people were most important to the development of computers before the First Generation?

What people were most important to the development of computers before the First Generation?
The first technologial advance that can be considered a computer was an automated weaving loom invented in France in 1801 by a Frenchman, Joseph-Marie Jacqu. It worked by wooden pieces with holes punched in a pattern which was read by the loom that could repeat the weave pattern over and over. A similar system is used by the player piano.

In 1890, the census was put onto punch cards similar to the cards for the loom. Herman Hollerith of MIT developed the system which used electric power. The Hollerith Tabulating Company eventually became IBM. In 1892, William Burroughs invented a printing calculator and a short time after produced an electric model.

Up to 1952 a number of competing inventions came and went. The most notable of these was th Enigma machine, to encrypt/decrypt messages, was invented by a German scientist, Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. The Germans had good success using this machine in World War II until the British captured a unit and were able to decode German messages.

In 1936, John Vincent Atanasoff and John Berry of Iowa State began work on a digital computer, designed to do electronic linear equations for physics. In 1937, a man named George Steblitz develops his "Model K" to solve complex calculations and while working at Bell Labs made improvements and in 1940 while at Dartmouth College, teletypes a problem to his "Complex Number Calculator" in New York, which sends back the results.

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