The Colossus electronic computer undergoes its first functional tests. The first computer in history was built by telephone engineer Tommy Flowers, based on specifications by mathematician Max Newman. The details remained a military secret for several decades. The maximum speed for reading punched cards was 5,000 characters per second. Colossus I had 1,600 valves. Later models had 2,400 valves and could read five streams of ones and zeros simultaneously, bringing the reading capacity to 25,000 characters per second. Unlike ENIAC, which was general purpose, it remained a special-purpose machine.
