Information
about the ENIAC
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One
of the FIRST computers ever
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first came on-line in February 1946
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cost $750,000—about 10 kabillion dollars today
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was a
30-ton building-based computer
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designed for WWII calculations
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basically a giant calculator
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covered two floors: one for the computer
and one for the cooling system
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had 6,000 switches
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70,000 resistors
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500,000 hand-soldered capacitors
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more than 19,000 vacuum tubes that
inevitably attracted moths
o
that’s where the term “bug report”
came from
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One of the tubes failed on average every
7 minutes
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NOT user friendly
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NO monitor
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NO mouse/keyboard
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Created at the
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3
Preceding Technologies
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Mechanical
Brains—like abacus
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Vacuum
Tube
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Punched
Card
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John Mauchly envisioned the ENIAC. He
was a professor of Physics at
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J. Presper Eckert solved the engineering
challenges.