Definition
ENIAC
The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first general-purpose, electronic digital computer, completed in 1945 at the University of Pennsylvania. It was designed primarily to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory.
Overview
Designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, the ENIAC was a modular computer composed of individual units to perform specific functions. It was a decimal-based system rather than binary, using ring counters to store digits.
Obs
The ENIAC’s physical scale was immense, occupying roughly 1,800 square feet and utilising approximately 18,000 vacuum tubes. These tubes were notoriously unreliable, frequently burning out and requiring manual replacement to maintain operation.
Although it was initially programmed via manual manipulation of plugboards and switches—resembling a massive telephone switchboard—it represented a critical step towards the development of the universal turing machine in physical form. John von Neumann was a key figure in its later development and the transition toward stored-program logic.