ENIAC
/EE-nee-ak/ · noun · Hacker Culture · Origin: 1945
Definitions
ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, completed in 1945 at the University of Pennsylvania. Funded by the U.S. Army to calculate artillery firing tables during World War II, it was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, weighed about 30 tons, occupied 1,800 square feet, and consumed 150 kilowatts of power. It could perform about 5,000 additions per second, an enormous leap over mechanical calculators. Programming ENIAC involved physically rewiring its patch panels and setting switches, a process that could take days. Six women mathematicians, including Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, and Frances Bilas, served as its primary programmers and are increasingly recognized for their pioneering contributions. ENIAC operated until 1956 and demonstrated that large-scale electronic computing was practical, directly inspiring the development of subsequent computers and the entire digital computing industry.
In plain English: The world's first real electronic computer, built in 1945 — it filled an entire room and had less computing power than a modern calculator.
Example: ENIAC was originally built to calculate artillery firing tables, but its first real job ended up being calculations for the hydrogen bomb.
Etymology
- 1943
- The U.S. Army funded the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer project at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School, led by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
- 1945
- ENIAC was completed, occupying 1,800 square feet and using 17,468 vacuum tubes. It could perform 5,000 additions per second, a massive leap over mechanical calculators.
- 1946
- ENIAC was publicly unveiled on February 14. Six women programmers (including Jean Jennings and Kay McNulty) had programmed it by physically rewiring patch cables.
- 1955
- ENIAC was decommissioned on October 2 after nearly a decade of service. Its architecture directly influenced the design of EDVAC and subsequent stored-program computers.
Origin Story
The 30-ton computer that launched the electronic age
**ENIAC** (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled on February 14, 1946, at the University of Pennsylvania. Built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, it was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army.
ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, weighed 30 tons, consumed 150 kilowatts of power, and occupied a 50-by-30-foot room. Despite its size, it could perform 5,000 additions per second -- a thousand times faster than existing mechanical calculators. Programming it meant physically reconnecting cables and flipping switches.
Six women -- Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Meltzer, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman -- programmed ENIAC, but their contributions went unrecognized for decades. They debugged by crawling inside the machine, tracing circuits by hand.
Coined by: John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert
Context: University of Pennsylvania, 1945 (completed), February 1946 (unveiled)
Fun fact: The myth that ENIAC dimmed the lights of Philadelphia when turned on is almost certainly false, but the machine did blow vacuum tubes so frequently that technicians kept replacements warm in ovens to avoid thermal shock. Running ENIAC was an exercise in continuous hardware debugging.