During World War II, the US military asked Dr. Mockley of the University of Pennsylvania and his
Student eckert designed ——ENIAC, an "electronic" computer with vacuum tubes instead of relays.
(electronic digital integrator and calculator), electronic digital integrator and instrument.
Calculator), the purpose is to calculate the projectile trajectory. This machine uses 18800 vacuum tube, which is 50 inches long.
Foot, 30 feet wide, covering an area of 1500 square feet, weighing 30 tons (about one and a half classrooms, six big.
Elephant weight). Its calculation speed is very fast, and it can engage in 5000 addition operations per second. It has been running for nine years. pass by
Yu eats electricity very fiercely. It is said that every time ENIAC is turned on, the lights in the west side of Philadelphia will be eclipsed.
In addition, the loss rate of vacuum tubes is quite high, and it is possible to burn out a vacuum tube almost every 15 minutes.
It takes more than 15 minutes for personnel to find the broken pipeline, which is extremely inconvenient to use. Someone once teased.
Tao: "As long as the machine can run continuously for five days without burning the vacuum tube, the inventor will pay."
This is a celebration.
The first electronic computer was made shortly after the Second World War. At that time, with the development of artillery, trajectory calculation became more and more complicated, and some original computers could not meet the requirements of use, so a new fast calculation tool was urgently needed. In this way, with the efforts of some scientists and engineers, on the basis that electronic technology has shown the functions of counting, calculation, transmission and storage control, electronic computers have emerged. The world's first electronic computer was named "Eniac", which was successfully developed by eckert of the University of Pennsylvania in 1946. It is equipped with more than 18 000 electron tubes and a large number of resistors and capacitors, and it has been operated by electronic circuits for the first time. Eniac can do 5000 additions or 400 multiplications per second. If the fastest electromechanical computer at that time was used to calculate the 40-point trajectory, it would take two hours, while Eniac only took three seconds, which was really a great achievement at that time. However, "Eniac" is not perfect. In fact, it has no memory, only a register made of electron tubes, which can only store 10 bits. When other topics need to be changed, it is time-consuming to re-weld the connection.
February 1946, 14, at Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, there was a festive atmosphere everywhere. Many guests come here with excitement because they will attend the unveiling ceremony of the first modern electronic computer in human history. What is presented to people is a strange-looking and glowing monster. It is the world's first modern electronic computer "ENIAC". This behemoth covers an area of 170 square meters and weighs 30 tons. At the unveiling ceremony, "Eniac" performed its "unique trick" for the guests-completing 5000 addition operations and 500 multiplication operations in 1 second respectively, which was more than 1000 times faster than the fastest relay computer at that time. This perfect appearance made the guests applaud. However, who knows, in the process of the birth of this behemoth, how many people have devoted countless efforts to it!