Skip to content
◈ALB Atlas

ENIAC Dead

ENIAC
KindMachine
Introduced1945
Discontinued1955
StatusDead
ManufacturerEckert & Mauchly / UPenn
ClassEarly computer
Platform18,000 vacuum tubes
Sourcewww.seas.upenn.edu ↗

The first general-purpose electronic computer — 30 tons, 150 kW, programmed by plugging cables. Built for artillery tables, famous for everything else.

Created by John Mauchly J. Presper Eckert

ENIAC was unveiled February 14, 1946 — 17,468 vacuum tubes (often cited as 18,000), 1,500 relays, and a program specified by rewiring cables and setting 6,000 switches. It ran firing tables for the Army a thousand times faster than a mechanical calculator.

Six women — the 'ENIAC Six' — did the programming, then erased from the record for decades. The patent fight (Honeywell v. Sperry Rand, 1973) ruled it derived from Atanasoff's earlier machine — a legal curiosity, not a historical one.

→ Read the full article on the ALB Wiki

Sources

  1. seas.upenn.edu/about-seas/eniac/
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC