ENIAC (Electronic Numeric Integrator
and Calculator)
Pennsylvania Historical Marker
Developer: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the
University of Pennsylvania, U.S.
Developed in: 1945 AD but Started working on December
10 1945
Latest Summary on this machine,
It was turing complete, digital and could solve a large
class of numerical problems through reprogramming.
It was the first electronic general purpose computer.
It is located now in University of
Pennsylvania Department of Computer and
Information Science, 3330 Walnut
Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
It’s coordinates are 39.9522012 degree North and
75.1909932 degree West.
It was dedicated as PHMC on Thursday June 15th,
2000 AD
ENIAC was desgined and primarily used for US
Army’s Ballistics research.
It’s first program was study of the feasibility of the
thermonuclear weapon.
ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of
Pennsylvania on February 15, 1946 and was heralded
as a "Giant Brain" by the press.
The team of design engineers assisting the
development included Robert F. Shaw (function
, tables), Jeffrey Chuan Chu (divider/square-rooter),
Thomas Kite Sharpless (master programmer), Frank
Mural (master programmer), Arthur
Burks (multiplier), Harry Huskey (reader/printer) and
Jack Davis (accumulators). In 1946, the researchers
resigned from the University of Pennsylvania and
formed the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation.
By the end of its operation in 1956, ENIAC contained
20,000 vacuum tubes; 7,200 crystal diodes;
1,500 relays; 70,000 resistors; 10,000 capacitors;
and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints.
It weighed more than 30 short tons (27 t), was
roughly 2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m (8 ft × 3 ft × 98 ft) in
size, occupied 167 m2 (1,800 sq ft) and consumed
150 kW of electricity.
ENIAC had no system to store memory in its
inception, these punch cards could be used for
external memory storage.
Input was possible from an IBM card reader and an
IBM card punch was used for output. These cards
could be used to produce printed output offline using
an IBM accounting machine, such as the IBM 405.
In 1953, a 100-word magnetic-core memory built by
the Burroughs Corporation was added to ENIAC.
The basic machine cycle was 200 microseconds (20
cycles of the 100 kHz clock in the cycling unit), or
5,000 cycles per second for operations on the 10-
digit numbers. In one of these cycles, ENIAC could
write a number to a register, read a number from a
register, or add/subtract two numbers.
and Calculator)
Pennsylvania Historical Marker
Developer: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the
University of Pennsylvania, U.S.
Developed in: 1945 AD but Started working on December
10 1945
Latest Summary on this machine,
It was turing complete, digital and could solve a large
class of numerical problems through reprogramming.
It was the first electronic general purpose computer.
It is located now in University of
Pennsylvania Department of Computer and
Information Science, 3330 Walnut
Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
It’s coordinates are 39.9522012 degree North and
75.1909932 degree West.
It was dedicated as PHMC on Thursday June 15th,
2000 AD
ENIAC was desgined and primarily used for US
Army’s Ballistics research.
It’s first program was study of the feasibility of the
thermonuclear weapon.
ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of
Pennsylvania on February 15, 1946 and was heralded
as a "Giant Brain" by the press.
The team of design engineers assisting the
development included Robert F. Shaw (function
, tables), Jeffrey Chuan Chu (divider/square-rooter),
Thomas Kite Sharpless (master programmer), Frank
Mural (master programmer), Arthur
Burks (multiplier), Harry Huskey (reader/printer) and
Jack Davis (accumulators). In 1946, the researchers
resigned from the University of Pennsylvania and
formed the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation.
By the end of its operation in 1956, ENIAC contained
20,000 vacuum tubes; 7,200 crystal diodes;
1,500 relays; 70,000 resistors; 10,000 capacitors;
and approximately 5,000,000 hand-soldered joints.
It weighed more than 30 short tons (27 t), was
roughly 2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m (8 ft × 3 ft × 98 ft) in
size, occupied 167 m2 (1,800 sq ft) and consumed
150 kW of electricity.
ENIAC had no system to store memory in its
inception, these punch cards could be used for
external memory storage.
Input was possible from an IBM card reader and an
IBM card punch was used for output. These cards
could be used to produce printed output offline using
an IBM accounting machine, such as the IBM 405.
In 1953, a 100-word magnetic-core memory built by
the Burroughs Corporation was added to ENIAC.
The basic machine cycle was 200 microseconds (20
cycles of the 100 kHz clock in the cycling unit), or
5,000 cycles per second for operations on the 10-
digit numbers. In one of these cycles, ENIAC could
write a number to a register, read a number from a
register, or add/subtract two numbers.
