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The World’s First Computer Has Finally Been Resurrected

  • 25 November 2014
  • 3 replies
  • 17 views
Jasper_The_Rasper
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Userlevel 7
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By Brendan I. Koerner  11.25.14 
 
 
 
http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/eniac3-315x236.jpgAn ENIAC technician changes a tube.

US Army
 
 
Eccentric billionaires are tough to impress, so their minions must always think big when handed vague assignments. Ross Perot’s staffers did just that in 2006, when their boss declared that he wanted to decorate his Plano, Texas, headquarters with relics from computing history. Aware that a few measly Apple I’s and Altair 880’s wouldn’t be enough to satisfy a former presidential candidate, Perot’s people decided to acquire a more singular prize: a big chunk of ENIAC, the “Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.” The ENIAC was a 27-ton, 1,800-square-foot bundle of vacuum tubes and diodes that was arguably the world’s first true computer. The hardware that Perot’s team diligently unearthed and lovingly refurbished is now accessible to the general public for the first time, back at the same Army base where it almost rotted into oblivion.
 
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3 replies

nic
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That's pretty cool that he did that.  All that early computing equipment should be preserved in a museum for future generations to see the origins.
shorTcircuiT
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An amazing piece of history, and before even MY time.  (I will have to have @ explain to me how it worked....)   :)
 
I cannot image the decication it took to keeping it running, as a huge amount of time must have been spent simply replacing the tubes as they died.  We would not be where we are today, in front of our little laptops and smartphones, today without it, but out tiny little devices also have far more power than it did.  
RetiredTripleHelix
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Userlevel 7
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@ wrote:
An amazing piece of history, and before even MY time.  (I will have to have @ explain to me how it worked....)   :)
 
I cannot image the decication it took to keeping it running, as a huge amount of time must have been spent simply replacing the tubes as they died.  We would not be where we are today, in front of our little laptops and smartphones, today without it, but out tiny little devices also have far more power than it did.  
I'm not that old buddy! :S
 
Daniel

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