The “first computers” (which can actually mean a lot of different things depending on what you’re defining as a computer) didn’t output text at all.
Even in the digital era, they output binary rather than text. In the 50s it would have been machine code in and machine code out.
Punch cards would have been binary, Initially machine code but later text encodings in binary. Given machines back then weren’t fixed with 8-bit bytes, it meant you have have larger or smaller character sets.
There were plenty of Japanese, Chinese and Russian computers using non-Latin characters. There were also plenty of European computers that supported native characters outside of the standard 26 English letters too. That’s why character encodings have been such a nightmare to work with prior to Unicodes adoption (and frankly, Unicode creates a new set of problems, but that’s a different topic entirely).
Just because you haven’t had to work with non-Latin, or even non-American, encodings doesn’t mean that all machines were English-centric.
Even in the digital era, they output binary rather than text. In the 50s it would have been machine code in and machine code out.
Punch cards would have been binary, Initially machine code but later text encodings in binary. Given machines back then weren’t fixed with 8-bit bytes, it meant you have have larger or smaller character sets.
There were plenty of Japanese, Chinese and Russian computers using non-Latin characters. There were also plenty of European computers that supported native characters outside of the standard 26 English letters too. That’s why character encodings have been such a nightmare to work with prior to Unicodes adoption (and frankly, Unicode creates a new set of problems, but that’s a different topic entirely).
Just because you haven’t had to work with non-Latin, or even non-American, encodings doesn’t mean that all machines were English-centric.