Computer programming of related content was a female job in the early 1940s. John Prespa Prespa eckert is a graduate student at Moore Institute of Engineering. A professor named John W. Mochili distributed some memos, introducing how a powerful new electronic calculator can bring benefits to war in such fields as setting ammunition trajectory. When the Army Ordnance Ballistics Research Laboratory approved the project, eckert became the driving force of what experts now think is the world's first digital general-purpose computer. As Herman Goldstein, a contemporary pioneer, summed up, "eckert's contribution ... surpassed all others. As the chief engineer, he is the main promoter of the whole mechanical device.
At that time, the concept of big computer had not yet formed. 1At the end of 939, Howard Aiken, a professor at Harvard University, was building a giant calculator Mark 1. In blakely Park, UK, cryptographers will supervise the construction of a special-purpose password cracker named "Colossus". 194 1 year, mochiri himself discussed this field with a professor named John v atanasoff in Iowa. He had planned to build his own large computer (but never finished the task). The difference between Eniac and other machines is that a working machine can perform thousands of calculations per second and can be easily reprogrammed for different tasks. This is a great undertaking. The original estimate of $654.38+$500,000 will increase to $400,000. The U-shaped building weighs 30 tons and covers an area of 65,438+0,500 square feet. Its 40 cabinets, each 9 feet high, contain 18000 vacuum tubes, 10000 capacitors, 6000 switches and 1500 relays. Looking at the console, observers can see a jumble of jumpers, which reminds them of the telephone exchange.
But when Eniac ended, so did the war. The machine didn't start until June 1945 1 1, when 300 neon lights connected to the battery lit up a basement of Moore School. Two 20-horsepower blowers breathe out cold air so that Eniac will not melt.
1946 February 14, * * * lifted the confidentiality measures of Eniac. An army press release began: "The War Department today announced a new machine that is expected to completely change engineering mathematics and many of our industrial design methods." . It describes a "mathematical robot" working at an "amazing" speed, "liberating scientific ideas from lengthy calculation work",
The next few years were not friendly to inventors. Mochiri and eckert set up the first commercial computer company and established the successor of Eniac. But their company was in trouble and they sold it to sperry Rand. To make matters worse, competitor Honeywell cited john atanasoff's work and tried to invalidate the Eniac patent. Although the never-folding computer in Iowa is not a universal machine and lacks many pioneering functions of Eniac (such as the "clock" for controlling the time of computer events), Honeywell initiated a court battle, which led the judge to declare atanasoff as the real inventor of the computer. This blow will always haunt Mokley and eckert.
At the same time, Eniac itself was demolished and some exhibits were exhibited in Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Museum. It finally got its due recognition in 1996, and the next day, 50 years later, * * * revealed its existence. Philadelphia, finally here.