ENIAC ('ɛniæk; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had combinations of these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one computer. It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.
Although ENIAC was designed and primarily used to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (which later became a part of the Army Research Laboratory), its first program was a study of the feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon.
ENIAC was completed in 1945 and first put to work for practical purposes on December 10, 1945.
ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania on February 15, 1946, having cost 487,000(),andcalleda"GiantBrain"bythepress.Ithadaspeedontheorderofonethousandtimesfasterthanthatofelectro−mechanicalmachines;thiscomputationalpower,coupledwithgeneral−purposeprogrammability,excitedscientistsandindustrialistsalike.Thecombinationofspeedandprogrammabilityallowedforthousandsmorecalculationsforproblems.ENIACwasformallyacceptedbytheU.S.ArmyOrdnanceCorpsinJuly1946.ItwastransferredtoAberdeenProvingGroundinAberdeen,Marylandin1947,whereitwasincontinuousoperationuntil1955.ENIAC′sdesignandconstructionwasfinancedbytheUnitedStatesArmy,OrdnanceCorps,ResearchandDevelopmentCommand,ledbyMajorGeneralGladeonM.Barnes.Thetotalcostwasabout487,000, . The construction contract was signed on June 5, 1943; work on the computer began in secret at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering the following month, under the code name "Project PX", with John Grist Brainerd as principal investigator. Herman H. Goldstine persuaded the Army to fund the project, which put him in charge to oversee it for them.
ENIAC was designed by Ursinus College physics professor John Mauchly and J.
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The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid calculation to modern day computers. The first aids to computation were purely mechanical devices which required the operator to set up the initial values of an elementary arithmetic operation, then manipulate the device to obtain the result. Later, computers represented numbers in a continuous form (e.g. distance along a scale, rotation of a shaft, or a voltage). Numbers could also be represented in the form of digits, automatically manipulated by a mechanism.
The LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) was a series of early computer systems created by J. Lyons and Co. The first in the series, the LEO I, was the first computer used for commercial business applications. The prototype LEO I was modelled closely on the Cambridge EDSAC. Its construction was overseen by Oliver Standingford, Raymond Thompson and David Caminer of J. Lyons and Co. LEO I ran its first business application in 1951. In 1954 Lyons formed LEO Computers Ltd to market LEO I and its successors LEO II and LEO III to other companies.
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