February 1946, 14, at Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, there was a festive atmosphere everywhere. Many guests come here with excitement because they will attend the unveiling ceremony of the first modern electronic computer in human history. What is presented to people is a strange-looking and glowing monster. It is the world's first modern electronic computer "ENIAC". This behemoth covers an area of 170 square meters and weighs 30 tons. At the unveiling ceremony, "Eniac" performed its "unique trick" for the guests-completing 5000 addition operations and 500 multiplication operations in 1 second respectively, which was more than 1000 times faster than the fastest relay computer at that time. This perfect appearance made the guests applaud. However, who knows, in the process of the birth of this behemoth, how many people have devoted countless efforts to it!
The behemoth of war:
Although the emergence of electronic computers is only 60 years, its birth is the accumulation of hundreds of years of human efforts. As early as17th century, a group of European mathematicians began to develop computers. 1642, Pascal, a French mathematician who was only 19 years old, successfully manufactured the first mechanical computer with clock gears, but he could only do addition and subtraction. On this basis, the German mathematician Leibniz invented a computer that can do multiplication and division in 1678. However, the performance of these mechanical computers is too backward to meet people's needs. More than one hundred years later, British mathematician Babbage designed a more advanced computer at 1822. Unfortunately, the industrial level was limited at that time, and Babbage's design could not be realized.
In the next 100 years, mankind has made great progress in the fields of electromagnetism, electrotechnics and electronics, laying a solid foundation for the emergence of electronic computers. After the outbreak of World War II, the US Army Ordnance Department set up a "Ballistic Research Laboratory" in Aberdeen, Maryland to research and develop new artillery. The extremely heavy computing task is a headache for the researchers there. Although the laboratory hired more than 200 computing automation personnel faster, it is still stretched. They urgently need a new computer to improve their work efficiency. Just when people were at their wits' end, Dr. Moakley from Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania put forward the idea of trial-producing the first electronic computer. His idea attracted the Army Ordnance Department, which immediately asked Moore College to draft a development plan.
According to scientists' estimation, the cost of manufacturing an electronic computer was $6.5438+0.5 million, which was a huge sum at that time, so it was resolutely opposed by many people in the military. Seeing that the plan to develop an electronic computer is about to die, Dr. Wilbur, a famous American mathematician, firmly stood among the supporters, and he finally persuaded the US military. After more than two years of intense research and development, the first electronic computer finally came out in February 1946. Moreover, its development funds have increased several times, and finally reached 480 thousand dollars.
This electronic computer named "Eniac" now looks like a monster. There are thousands of electronic tubes, diodes, resistors and other components, and there are as many as 500 thousand solder joints in the circuit; On the surface of the machine, there are meters, wires and indicator lights. What makes people laugh and cry is that its power consumption exceeds 174 kwh, and it is said that the lights in the whole town will dim when used; Moreover, its electron tube will burn out every 15 minutes on average, and scientists have to keep changing it in a sweat. But the calculation speed of "Eniac" is 200,000 times that of manual calculation and 1 1,000 times that of relay computer. The U.S. military has also tasted the sweetness, because it takes only three seconds to calculate the trajectory of a shell, whereas before that, it took 200 people to calculate it manually for two months. In addition to the conventional ballistic calculation, it later involved many scientific research fields and played an important role in the development of the first atomic bomb.
1955101On February 2nd, Enyak was declared "retired" and exhibited in a museum in Washington.
Three electronic computers compete for the title of "the first in the world";
Interestingly, the halo on "Eniac" has been controversial for many years. In fact, quite a few people think that 1943, the "giant" computer developed in Britain is the first electronic computer in the world, but it is kept secret. It was not until 1975 that the British authorities decrypted the relevant files that people learned about this inside story.
It turns out that in World War II, in order to decipher a mechanical code of the Germans, the British intelligence agency cooperated with experts in mathematics and electronics to develop a large-scale electronic computing device at 1943, and called it a "giant" machine. Before the invention of the "Giant" machine, it took six to eight weeks for Britain to decipher German high-level passwords, while it only took six to eight hours after using the "Giant" machine. Since it was put into use, a large number of high-level German military secrets have been quickly deciphered, which greatly accelerated the process of the collapse of Nazi Germany. Because of the need of war, Britain regards it as "super secret". It is said that Britain secretly destroyed 10 similar computers after the war for secrecy. However, some people think that "giant" computers are not real electronic computers, but are between relay computers and modern electronic computers.
It is also said that atanasoff, a Bulgarian-born American physicist, was the inventor of the first electronic computer. As early as1939,65438+February, he built the world's first electronic computer, but because it was World War II, he didn't apply for a patent or publish the information. Despite different opinions, "Eniac" is still recognized by most people as the world's first electronic computer, and Valentine's Day 60 years ago has been recorded in the history of human invention forever.
Electronic computers became famous overnight because of the presidential election;
At the beginning of its birth, "Eniac" could not be widely used because of its many defects. It was not until 195 1 that Moakley and eckert developed UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) on the basis of "Eniac" that electronic computers began to move from real rooms to society. Soon, the accident happened and the popularity increased rapidly.
1952, which coincides with the US election. In order to process the election data, CBS hired UNIVAC to predict the election results. Just 45 minutes after the election, UNIVAC calculated that Eisenhower would win by an absolute margin of 438 votes. But before the election, almost all experts and the media predicted that the two sides would be evenly matched. Therefore, the broadcaster refused to report the prediction results of the computer. Engineers had to recalculate, but the computer still insisted that Eisenhower would win by a big margin. When the election results were officially announced, everyone was shocked: Eisenhower actually got 442 votes, and the prediction error rate of UNIVAC was less than 1%! Since then, the world has begun to have a new understanding of the functions of electronic computers, and the development of electronic computers has entered a new era.
From then to today, the development of electronic computers has made great progress. It is not only widely used in people's social life, but also directly guides the development of the information society today. There is no doubt that the electronic computer is one of the greatest inventions in human history. Nowadays, it has become an indispensable part of modern society and will continue to play an important role in the future.