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How the World's First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap

Posted by Soulskill on from the one-man's-trash dept.

anavictoriasaavedra sends this quote from Wired: "Eccentric billionaires are tough to impress, so their minions must always think big when handed vague assignments. Ross Perot's staffers did just that in 2006, when their boss declared that he wanted to decorate his Plano, Texas, headquarters with relics from computing history. Aware that a few measly Apple I's and Altair 880's wouldn't be enough to satisfy a former presidential candidate, Perot's people decided to acquire a more singular prize: a big chunk of ENIAC, the "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer." The ENIAC was a 27-ton, 1,800-square-foot bundle of vacuum tubes and diodes that was arguably the world's first true computer. The hardware that Perot's team diligently unearthed and lovingly refurbished is now accessible to the general public for the first time, back at the same Army base where it almost rotted into oblivion.

23 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Ross Perot is awesome! by Obscene_CNN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ross Perot is awesome! Damn shame that Clinton got elected.

    --
    I don't want to do a sig now
    1. Re:Ross Perot is awesome! by stox · · Score: 2

      If it wasn't for Perot, Bush I would have probably been elected.

      --
      "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    2. Re:Ross Perot is awesome! by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 2

      It's a common belief, but it's not true. In exit polls, when Perot voters were asked who they would have voted for if Perot wasn't on the ballot, they were split nearly 50/50.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992#Analysis

    3. Re:Ross Perot is awesome! by Freshly+Exhumed · · Score: 2

      ENIAC anagram solver output: H. Ross Perot == Short Poser

      --
      I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
  2. Except... by SkunkPussy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...it wasn't the first computer.

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    SURELY NOT!!!!!
    1. Re:Except... by arth1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Several years later than this one:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z...

      The Z3 was the first electromechanical gp computer
      The ABC was the first electronic non-gp computer
      The Colossus was the first electronic gp computer
      The ENIAC was the first American gp computer.

    2. Re:Except... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      From the wiki page:
      "Colossus was the first of the electronic digital machines with programmability, albeit limited by modern standards.[34]

      It had no internally stored programs. To set it up for a new task, the operator had to set up plugs and switches to alter the wiring.
      Colossus was not a general-purpose machine, being designed for a specific cryptanalytic task involving counting and Boolean operations.
      A Colossus computer was thus not a fully general Turing complete machine"

      ENIAC was a *general purpose* computer so calling it the first computer is justifiable.

      or maybe this guy

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

    3. Re:Except... by beelsebob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Colossus absolutely was general purpose - it just wasn't stored program. You had to set it up fresh for each program.

    4. Re:Except... by Baloroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Colossus absolutely was general purpose - it just wasn't stored program. You had to set it up fresh for each program.

      No, it wasn't general purpose. It was designed from the ground up to solve a very specific class of problems. It would have been possible (as the linked article states) to put a bunch of them together to form a Universal Turing computer, but it itself was not general purpose nor Turing complete.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    5. Re:Except... by Solandri · · Score: 3, Informative

      Before you younguns turn this into a "those silly Americans" thread, Colossus was absolutely essential to breaking the Nazi Enigma code and was classified during and after WWII. ENIAC was therefore regarded worldwide as the world's first general purpose computer. Everyone who went to school before 1996 was taught that ENIAC was the world's first GP computer.

      Information about Colossus was first declassified in 1975, but it wasn't until 1996 (not coincidentally 50 years after WWII ended) that enough about it was declassified for the general public to realize it was in fact the first GP computer.

    6. Re:Except... by GumphMaster · · Score: 2

      Colossus was built to deal with the higher value, lower volume and more difficult Lorenz SZ40/42 electronic teletype machine ciphers known as "Tunny".

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      Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
  3. the first built in the US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    not the world's first.

    1. Re:the first built in the US by RadioheadKid · · Score: 2

      It was the first general purpose.

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      "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
    2. Re:the first built in the US by beelsebob · · Score: 2

      No, Colossus was General Purpose - ENIAC was the first general purpose, stored program computer.

    3. Re:the first built in the US by gweihir · · Score: 2

      No, that was the Zuse Z1 in 1938, 8 years before ENIAC. Even the Z4, which was a freaking _commercial_ design was built from 1943 onwards, years before ENIAC.

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      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:the first built in the US by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, Colossus was General Purpose

      True, but only as long as all your purposes are restricted to cracking the codes from a particular model of Nazi mechanical encryption device.

  4. ENIAC wasn't the first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    ENIAC wasn't the first electronic programmable computer. Colossus was. It was used for code breaking in WW2. Colossus Mark 1 was up and running by December 1943, and Mark 2 (using shift registers to increase speed) was up and running by June 1944. The only reason people think of ENIAC instead of Colossus, was that Colossus's existence was kept secret up until the 1970s. By that time ENIAC got all the publicity.

    1. Re:ENIAC wasn't the first by whoever57 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Manchester "Baby" is also claimed to be the first true computer. Both Colossus and ENIAC are not full computers in the way we understand them now.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    2. Re:ENIAC wasn't the first by Baloroth · · Score: 2

      Fail. The Z1 was the first programmable computer, finished in 1938 by Zuse himself, on private funding.

      Yes, but he didn't fail, because that's not what he said. He said first electronic programmable computer. The Z1 (and successors) were electromechanical. Still impressive in their own right, true, but nothing like the electronic computers that were invented later.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
  5. Making ENIAC run again by erice · · Score: 2

    Gleason realized early on that he couldn’t make his portion of ENIAC run actual calculations—such an endeavor would require all 40 panels

    I wonder if Gleason of other preservationists have considered building functional replicas of the missing panels. Doing so would be the first step is bringing the relics to life again as a functioning computer.

    Of course, that would not be the end of the project:

    , not to mention thousands of new components and technical know-how that had long been forgotten.

    But perhaps a workable project to restore ENIAC to working order could inspire the re-discovery of such knowledge. Often of technical knowledge thought to be lost is not really lost, just misplaced. Somebody knows or knows who knows but they need to be inspired to come forward or follow up on their hunch.

  6. I couldn't focus on the story by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    That giant sucking sound coming from the south was interfering with my concentration.

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    #DeleteChrome
  7. Essentially lost: only 8 out of 40 panels by unimacs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So essentially ENIAC is lost.

    What's left is only a quarter of the original machine that's been turned into some light show. The other 3/4 of the panels are owned by other people or are gone entirely. While I'm not saying it wasn't worth doing or that it wasn't hard work, it's not what I would call "refurbished".

    It's like digging up a skeleton and having someone rig up a motion detector to play recorded phrases and move the jaw as people walk by it.

    Unfortunately there seems to be a period of time where things are just old and past their usefulness, - their historical significance takes more time for people to appreciate. I understand that a true restoration would be hugely impractical, but it would be cool.

  8. Essentially lost: only 8 out of 40 panels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or you can get ENIAC on a chip:

    http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~jan/eniacproj.html

    much less space and easier on the electric bill too.