ENIAC
ENIAC (/ˈɛniæk/; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had combinations of these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one computer. It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.
Four ENIAC panels and one of its three function tables at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania | |
| Location | University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science, 3330 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 39.9523°N 75.1906°W |
| Built/founded | 1945 |
| PHMC dedicated | Thursday, June 15, 2000 |
ENIAC was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (which later became a part of the Army Research Laboratory). However, its first program was a study of the feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon.
ENIAC was completed in 1945 and first put to work for practical purposes on December 10, 1945.
ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania on February 15, 1946, having cost $487,000 (equivalent to $6,600,000 in 2022), and called a "Giant Brain" by the press. It had a speed on the order of one thousand times faster than that of electro-mechanical machines.
ENIAC was formally accepted by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in July 1946. It was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland in 1947, where it was in continuous operation until 1955.