Computer History | ENIAC Computer History (1946)
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.
1946-02-15 19:00:00 - Computer History Archive
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.
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.