Re: 60+ years
- From: Saint George's Dragon <firstname_lastname@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:15:37 GMT
On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 05:33:37 +0200, Pibbur
<oopsREM.OVE512@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From Wikipedia:
[28th of July] 1947 ? ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic
digital computer, was turned on in its new home at the Ballistic Research
Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, remaining in continuous operation
until October 2, 1955.
(Ok, it was finished some time before)
There has been some developments in computer technology since then.
The ENIAC was actually dedicated in 1946 IIRC. There was a big 50
years of ENIAC in 1996. In a sense while the first general-purpose,
electronic, large scale machine, the ENIAC lacked much of the
flexibility that machines produced only two or so years later had. It
was originally programmed by rewiring (well actually plug board
units), until someone figured out how to modify it to allow it to read
a program out of function tables in 1948.
The designers of the ENIAC realized that a truly flexibile machine
should be controlled by its program rather than rewiring and also I
think it lacked the ability to branch (possibly even after switched
into its programmable form).
The inventors of the ENIAC went on to work for UNIVAC (aka Sperr-Rand
aka I foget what else). There was a patent dispute and the courts
decided that the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (a machine developped in the
late 30s and early 40s) was the first computer it was electronic and
digital but used only to solve linear equations and nowhere near the
kind of computing power as the ENIAC (although you have more computing
power in your mobile phone than the ENIAC had), so most agree it fails
at being general purpose.
Still as one historian of technology pointed out put enough
qualifications in front and any invention can be a first, so such
priority disputes are a bit of a mugs game.
--
d e+ N- T- Om++ UK!1!2!3!4!56A78!9 u uC uF- uG+ uLB+ uA nC nR nH+ nP
nI+ nPT nS+ nT- y- a28, Captain in the Cinnaguard, Weirdo, Blue Bow
[B><B], stealth robot pirate ninja, Website:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound
-----------
Yours Truly Saint George's Dragon
Allan Olley -==UDIC==-
-----------
"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover
everybody's face but their own" Johathan Swift
.
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