Not any more accurate than it is to say the electronic storage and compute of any computer is defeated by the latency of its memory. Virtually all early memory devices were deeply limited.
Really the ABC was most limited by its use of a custom I/O device which used electrically burned holes in special paper to input the initial problem state and output the solution. Atanasoff never got it working reliably, which is the main reason the ABC was never fully functional before WWII.
In any case, the fixed nature of the ABC is often why its considered the first "digital electronic computer" and the ENIAC the first "general purpose digital electronic digital computer" (or later, the first "programmable digital electronic digital computer", after it was rebuilt in '46 - '47 to operate more like a modern computer).
Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Zuse's computers or the Colossus to say if those statements are really accurate.
Comments
Not any more accurate than it is to say the electronic storage and compute of any computer is defeated by the latency of its memory. Virtually all early memory devices were deeply limited.
Really the ABC was most limited by its use of a custom I/O device which used electrically burned holes in special paper to input the initial problem state and output the solution. Atanasoff never got it working reliably, which is the main reason the ABC was never fully functional before WWII.
In any case, the fixed nature of the ABC is often why its considered the first "digital electronic computer" and the ENIAC the first "general purpose digital electronic digital computer" (or later, the first "programmable digital electronic digital computer", after it was rebuilt in '46 - '47 to operate more like a modern computer).
Unfortunately I'm not familiar enough with Zuse's computers or the Colossus to say if those statements are really accurate.