Computer History: 1946 ENIAC Computer History Remastered FULL VERSION First Electronic Computer U.S.

Computer History: ENIAC Computer History, an educational film: The First Large Scale, Programmable, General Purpose Electronic Digital Computer ~ ENIAC - original 1946 announcement film, restored & new narration. ENIAC, "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer", was designed by J. Presper Eckert and Dr. John Mauchly. ENIAC used 18,000 vacuum tubes. This rare film shows the ENIAC in operation in February 1946, when it was first announced to the public. Features the designers Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, and the U.S. Army liaison Herman Goldstine. Film shows many of the women in the ENIAC computing environment, as programmers, analysts and operators, configuring ENIAC for computational problem solving.

Co-inventors and designers of ENIAC, J. P. Eckert and Dr. John Mauchly, founded one of the FIRST companies founded expressly to build electronic business computers: "Electronic Control Company", which was later incorporated as the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation ("EMCC") in Philadelphia. EMCC became part of Remington-Rand in 1950.

Eckert and Mauchly also designed and built the BINAC (1949) and the famous UNIVAC I (1951) computers. Their pioneering work was instrumental in the rise of the early electronic digital computer industry. (Editing, Mark Greenia, Computer History Archives Project)

In 1997, six of the women most involved in the programming and operating of the ENIAC were inducted into the "Women in Technology International Hall of Fame." They were Kathleen McNulty Mauchly (Antonelli), Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Synder Holber, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.

* * You are warmly invited to view the video of the BINAC computer, a rare look at the 1949 "Binary Automatic Computer" -

* * Also, visit the YouTube video series of interviews with Dr. John W. Mauchly as he recounts
personal memories of his early word in computer technologies:

Visit our many other Computer History videos,
Presented for educational and historical content.

{The Computer History Archives Project (CHAP) is an independent educational research project dedicated to the research and sharing of vintage computing technology.}

[mattnielsen]

I'd like to see the looks on their faces when shown a modern smartphone that blows the socks of ENIAC. With all due respect, it was a great machine. And what an achievement.

[revelandolaverdaddesconoci]

An inspiring video for students of Computer Science

[bill-]

I remember being told at school about ENIAC, I guess about 1964-ish.
18, 000 tubes (valves) would mean a lot of heat. What brilliant electronic engineers.

[JugSouthgate]

ENIAC was the first general-purpose, Turing-complete, high-speed, digital electronic computer.

In 1976, when I was a senior at Penn, there was a room on the first floor that was used for storage. Room 101 as I recall. One day in the spring, a friend told me there were some odd things in there that had just been delivered. So we investigated...

It was ENIAC, or part of it. I knew it right away from the pictures, and having read the papers in the Moore School library. There were a couple of racks, various modules, etc.

It was built in modular fashion so that if a problem was detected a module would be replaced rather than trying to fix it in place. There were a lot of modules!

The tubes and parts were exceedingly ordinary - it had been designed to use what was available during the war. I could have easily walked off with a module or two, but didn't - that would have been wrong.

They must have kept the parts and gotten more, because in 1996, for the 50th anniversary, they got some of it back together and working well enough to add two numbers. Last time I was there, it was on display in the lobby of the Moore School.

ENIAC was a decimal machine, not binary, but in pretty much all other respects it is a classic Von Nuemann computer, with I/O, CPU, memory, etc. It was programmed in machine language - by a team of women who invented the needed methods as they went along.

By modern standards ENIAC was mind-bogglingly slow and stupid - but by the standards of the time, it was orders of magnitude faster and smarter than anything anyone had imagined before. ENIAC would do in seconds what the fastest machines before would do in days. And, ENIAC was general purpose - it could do any calculation or similar problem that could be broken down into a series of logical steps.

Every digital computer and related device you use today is a direct descendant of ENIAC.

[kevinhoward]

ENIAC could give balistics readouts in 30 seconds, my computer can probably do it in 3/300th of a second. Its amazing how far and fast we have come

[James_Knott]

One thing I read elsewhere was that big number display, with all the lights, was added for the benefit of the reporters writing about the ENIAC. Beyond that, it served no function. This reminds me of something that happened in my company's data centre. A TV crew was in there and thought the computer didn't look like it was doing anything, so the techs ran some diagnostics, to cause activity on the tape stands, so that it looked busy. 🙂

[robsemail]

I remember when I worked as a computer tech, in about 1990, and the boss had recently got a new contract with the DOD. On April 1, we played an excellent trick on him. We convinced him that DOD had called and wanted him to fly to DC to help reboot the ENIAC. He believed us, and actually started making plans.

[scottloiselle]

Awesome job, enjoyed the heck out of it. Still wrapping my mind around 18000 tubes....the heat generated, the power requirements, I imagine they must have had one or more full time persons just for tube testing!

[frankowalker]

Wonderful restoration. 3:03 What a beautiful smile she has.

[alphonsocarioti]

The ENIAC could perform about 5000 additions or 50 multiplications in one second. The clock speed was 100kHz.

[owenshebbeare]

Trouble is it was wrong. The first electronic, programmable, digital computer was Colossus from 1944, it was just kept secret though ENIAC's designers certainly knew of it.

[replybiz]

It was an analogue numerical computer but a true electronic machine. The way it was programmed was determined by the way it was patched.

[amrkoptan]

The Brilliant work of Eckert and Mauchly was based on the original design of Dr. Atanasoff and his First Electronic Computer named Atanasoff Berry Computer, Although both denied their work to be of any relation to Dr. Atanasoff, he raised a lawsuit and proved his patent in a long fight because of a letter Dr. Mauchly wrote - which he completely forgot about in the court - asking him to use some of his ideas in a commercial computer. still ENIAC is known to history to be invented by Eckert and Mauchly Work, everybody forgot about Dr. Atanasoff. both ways thanks for providing this rare footage.

[hal]

So ENIAC's legacy is.. EMCC Inc. ->  Remington Rand  -> SPERRY  -> Burroughs  -> UniSys Corporation... which still operates to this day...

[izzyfromoregonoregon]

Looks like some species of a bingo machine.

[kfl]

My brain hurts, just thinking about how far reaching and how super smart these men and women were who developed and ran these computers. Just think where the world would be if we were stuck using computers based on switches and relays as had been before this computer was invented.

[headpox]

Great to see the old film restored - thank you.
9:19 It would be nice to see Australia's first computer (CSIR Mk1 later known as CSIRAC) from 1949, inserted in the list of Earliest Computers.

[HyperOpicMedia]

For all you software programmers & de-buggers...
There was a glitch in the performance of this machine, and the gals were instructed to see what was wrong.
They found an insect in among the vacuum tubes
...and they DE-BUGGED IT !
(true story)

[TSWSCI]

Very informative and very well put together. Amazing ❤️ Thank you

[netwalker-]

Thanks to the skill of Lester J. Hemming piloting the Omega Boost, today we exist. If the infected ENIAC vacuum tube had not been changed in time, we would be under AlphaCore's dominance.