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Computers: ENIAC
1946 - John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert develop the ENIAC, the world?s first functional computer. Weighing in at 30 tons and measuring 1,000 square feet it was composed of a programmable plug board with switches, with a speed of 5,000 operations per second.
The ENIAC led the computer field during the period of 1949 through 1952 when it served as the main computation workhorse for the solution of the scientific problems of the Nation. It surpassed all other existing computers put together whenever it came to problems involving a large number of arithmetic operations. It was the major instrument for the computation of all ballistic tables for the U.S. Army and Air Force.
In addition to ballistics, the ENIAC's field of application included weather prediction, atomic-energy calculations, cosmic-ray studies, thermal ignition, random-number studies, wind-tunnel design, and other scientific uses. It is recalled that no electronic computers were being applied to commercial problems until about 1951.
