The reason "ordinateur" is used in French, is that IBM coined that word because "calculateur" (the regular modern French translation of "computer") sounded too mundane.

"Ordinateur" suggests sorting, rather than just making simple calculations.

It has nothing at all with "keeping the language pure" (which seems kind of a meme in the English speaking world, but really couldn't be further from truth) and it was originally trademarked by IBM, but quickly became a generic word.

Ok, sorry, I did not fact check my comment. I just remembered my French teacher from school making fun about L‘Académie with regard to this and other weird French terms like „baladeur“ instead of Walkman (tm).

I had a comment written up to say the same thing, but then I found this: https://blogs.transparent.com/french/the-origin-of-lordinate...

Turns out that ordinateur wasn't chosen for French purity but because IBM wanted a fancy word to sell their fancy machine by.

We Spaniards use ordenador and before that we used "computadora".

The Spanish speakers across the pond use "computadora" or "computador".

To us computador make us think on something like an old ancient device from the 60-70's.