Text 3. The ENIAC Computer

Fig. 2. ENIAC

The ENIAC computer is known as being one of the most important achievements in computing. The computer was commissioned during WWII and it was used by the US military for ballistics research for computing tables. The ENIAC stands for Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator. It was developed by John Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert. The ENIAC used vacuum tubes instead of electric motors and levers to speed up calculations. ENIAC was originally

designed starting in 1943, however it wasn’t built and ready for operation until 1946.

The total cost of the ENIAC was $500,000. While it was originally built for ballistics it was used for weather forecast, random number studies and even wind tunnel design. The ENIAC was enormous.

Regarding speed, the ENIAC was blazing

fast for the technology in those times. It one second, the ENIAC could perform 5,000 additions, 357 multiplications or 38 divisions. The speed of the ENIAC was about 1,000 times faster than any other calculating device during that era. The ENIAC stayed in operation until 1955.

Text 4. The First Random Access Memory (RAM)

In 1946, RAM or Random Access Memory was first introduced and started to be utilized as an effective data storage device. While the ability to use a cathode ray tube was being studied for several years, the Williams tube was the first RAM to be utilized in computers. RAM is an easy way to store computer instructions that can be used over and over by the computer without unnecessary programming.

The first RAM was actually a metal

detector plate that was in position close to a vacuum tube which detected the difference in electrical charges. On a CRT screen, one can see the difference between these charges as either a dot or pixel of green or black. With the advent of RAM, rewiring each time a new program was no longer necessary and programming itself became more convenient and quicker.

This type of memory was used until core memory took over in 1955.