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R ANDOM F ACT 1.1: The ENIAC and the Dawn of
Computing
The ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) was the first usable
electronic computer. It was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the
University of Pennsylvania and was completed in 1946. Instead of transistors,
which were not invented until two years after it was built, the ENIAC contained
about 18,000 vacuum tubes in many cabinets housed in a large room (see The
ENIAC figure). Vacuum tubes burned out at the rate of several tubes per day. An
attendant with a shopping cart full of tubes constantly made the rounds and replaced
defective ones. The computer was programmed by connecting wires on panels.
Each wiring configuration would set up the computer for a particular problem. To
have the computer work on a different problem, the wires had to be replugged.
Work on the ENIAC was supported by the U.S. Navy, which was interested in
computations of ballistic tables that would give the trajectory of a projectile,
depending on the wind resistance, i nitial velocity, and atmospheric conditions. To
compute the trajectories, one mus t find the numerical solutions of certain
differential equations; hence the name Ȓnumerical integratorȓ. Before machines like
ENIAC were developed, humans did this kind of work, and until the 1950s the
word Ȓcomputerȓ referred to these people. The ENIAC was later used for peaceful
purposes, such as the tabulation of U.S. census data.
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The ENIAC
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