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movie 1ENIAC(Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) 5,000 operations/second • World’s first electronic, digital, programmable computer• 1,800 vacuum tubes operating at reduced voltage to improve reliability• Built for the Army at the University of Pennsylvania to compute artillery trajectories • Input and output by punch-cards • Laborious repositioning of switches, dials, and jumper cables required for programming
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The first practical vacuum tube was invented in 1906. Simple but clever circuit design could turn exactly the same tubes used in radios and televisions into the electronic on-off switches needed for computers. By later standards, the tubes were hot, bulky, and prone to failure, but they made development of the modern computer—electronic, digital, programmable—possible.
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Lab scientists travel east with a million punch-cards to perform historic test of ENIAC, evaluating the feasibility of the Super— the proposed thermonuclear weapon also known as the H-bomb.
