eniac today A Hundred Years of Invention The First Computer

There’s been a controversy in the computing world when discussing what was the first computer invented.

For years, the accepted pioneer of the digital age was the ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, perhaps because the story associated with the development was one worthy for tabloids and television.

As World War II was coming to a close, the Army had run short of mathematicians and were willing to recruit women. Six women were accepted to work on “Project PX” at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering, under John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The woman’s job was to program firing tables and ballistic trajectories using ENIAC. Their work laid the groundwork for programming. The completed machine was unveiled on Feb. 14, 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. The military had funded the cost of almost $500,000. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. It is widely considered to be the first computer invented, considering its highly functional status through the late 1950s.

However, its “first”… More >>