ENIAC & UNIVAC I
THE ENIAC
ENIAC was the world’s first electronic general-purpose computer. It was digital, fully programmable and Turning complete. The massive computer, which weighed about twenty-seven tons, dwarfed the computational power of previous computers.
A number of improvements were made to the computer over the years, the most important of which was likely the inclusion of a stored programing mechanism in 1948. It was not, however, the first computer to have this feature.
used primarily to help the United States military with artillery calculations, the first problem assigned to it was related to the design of the hydrogen bomb.
UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer)
In 1951, Eckert and Mauchly designed another computer called the UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer). It was the first computer to be sold to businesses. UNIVAC contained 5,400 vacuum tubes and used magnetic tapes to give instructions to the computer. The UNIVAC was used to predict the presidential election of Dwight Eisenhower. No one believed the machines prediction at first, but it was very accurate.
