ENIAC Research Paper

In 1946, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, two engineers at the University of Pennsylvania finished designing a machine they worked on for years. They named it “Electronic Numerical Indicator And Computer,” or the ENIAC. “The U.S. Department of Defense had funded the ENIAC project to develop a machine to predict the trajectory of rapid-fire artillery shells” (1). After it was aired, it weighted 30 tons, and was approximately 8 feet tall. The space it took up was equivalent to a ballroom. “It was made up of tens of thousands of parts, including 18,000 vacuum tubes — hot, glowing, nearly airless glass tubes enclosing filaments to control the flow of electricity” (1). In order to activate it, this machine entailed an input of 150 kilowatts of electrical power whilst completing 5,000 calculations per second. The rise of designing large computers started in 1939. Mark 1, a giant calculator was built by Howard Aiken, a Harvard professor. What distinguished ENIAC from this computer was that this machine calculated thousands of calculations in a blink of an eye. Mark 1 was a masterpiece that urged others to make more advanced technologies. …show more content…
“The machine did not boot up until November 1945, when 300 neon lights attached to accumulators lit up a basement room at the Moore School. Two 20-horsepower blowers exhaled cool air so that ENIAC wouldn’t melt down” (2). When the government announced the ENIAC on February 14, 1946, it was stated that “A new machine that is expected to revolutionize the mathematics of engineering and change many of our industrial design methods was announced today by the War Department” states an Army press release (2). It was pronounced as a ““mathematical robot” working at “phenomenal” speed that “frees scientific thought from the drudgery of lengthy calculating work”

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