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Period: to
1946
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1946
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 -
Vacuum tube computers
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. -
1945-1946
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.
