The Least Powerful Computer

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What do you think is the least powerful computer in history?

Someone on one of my retro gaming forums posted this question because he wanted to know how far the general public's perception of old computers differs from that of people who are more informed about them. I thought I would go one better and ask on some non-retro gaming/vintage computer forums to get an answer based on data rather than idle speculation.

Please don't do any Google research for this question. It's about what you already know off the top of your head.

Sinclair 3000 from the 80s?

The abacus.

Depends on your definition of a computer. Back in the mid 1970's I had a programmable Commodore calculator that you could store something like 80 instructions on and it would do simple numerical input / output. Great for plugging in formulas and letting it ask you the variables and generating a result. You could also program very simple numerical games too.

The first "true" computer I owned was a Sinclair ZX81 with something like 8 KB of RAM.

A solar powered pocket calculator in a cave could be considered quite underpowered.

Based on what I consider a computer to be modern day and everything I would say something with 264 RAM. Honestly there are so many cheap options and small upgrades to up a pc's performance that the really weak stuff now would be things like smart phones and tablets. A lot of the functionality with more mobility such as a laptop.

This is probably true, though I tend to not want to consider anything ARM-based to be a type of "PC" platform, but I realize that is a bit nitpicky.

Anyway, I think the weakest computer argument should be more broken down into categories of computers. Weakest early model consumer desktop, weakest laptop, weakest early model transistor based computer, I guess ENIAC would be the weakest vaccuum tube based computer but I am not actually sure, as being the first of something does not imply being the weakest.

In a way, the human brain is probably the weakest and most limited form of computer, due to limitations on functionality in general and the fact it requires constant resting. Imagine a desktop or laptop that only had consistent and reliable functionality for roughly 8 to 10 hours a day, after which time it began making mistakes in calculation and wanting to crash, then had to be put to sleep for 8 to 10 hours in order to function properly the next day

If our brains were good computers, mechanical and electronic computers would never have been invented!

Mine manages on 5 XD I can't seem to sleep longer..

I want to return mine to the manufacturer sometimes

Any machine that can compute is by definition a computer. The first digital, theoretically Turing complete computer was the Zuse Z1 in 1941. My guess is that this is the least powerful computer ever made (it ran at a whopping 10 hz).