Happy Birthday, ENIAC
The machine designed by Drs. Eckert and Mauchly
was a monstrosity. When it was finished, the ENIAC filled an entire room,
weighed thirty tons, and consumed two hundred kilowatts of power. And your
cellphone has more computing power.
The machine designed by Drs. Eckert and Mauchly was a monstrosity. When it was finished, the ENIAC filled an entire room, weighed thirty tons, and consumed two hundred kilowatts of power. It generated so much heat that it had to be placed in one of the few rooms at the University with a forced air cooling system.
Vacuum tubes, over 19,000 of them, were the principal elements in the computer’s circuitry. It also had fifteen hundred relays and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors.
All of this electronics were held in forty-two panels nine feet tall, two feet wide, and one foot thick. They were arranged in a “U” shape, with three panels on wheels so they could be moved around. An IBM card reader and card punch were used respectively for input and output.
14 February 1946 was ENIAC’s birthday — the day it was announced. The following day it was officially dedicated by the University of Pennsylvania. They still have some of the original panels in their ENIAC Museum. The first electronic numerical integrator and computer — ENIAC for short.
Less than 10 years later it was shut down as obsolete.
Posted: Wed - February 14, 2007 at 07:49 AM