ENIAC Unveiling: The Giant Brain Lights Up Philadelphia

# The Discovery of ENIAC: February 14, 1946

On Valentine's Day in 1946, while couples across America were exchanging cards and chocolates, a different kind of love affair was being consummated in Philadelphia—one between humanity and the electronic digital age. On February 14, 1946, the U.S. Army unveiled ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) to the public at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering.

ENIAC was an absolute *beast* of a machine. Weighing 30 tons and occupying 1,800 square feet of floor space, it contained approximately 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. When powered on, it consumed 150 kilowatts of electricity—enough to dim the lights in an entire section of Philadelphia (or so the legend goes, though this was likely exaggerated).

What made ENIAC revolutionary wasn't just its size but its speed. While previous mechanical computers like the Harvard Mark I could perform perhaps three additions per second, ENIAC could execute 5,000 additions per second. It could multiply numbers in 2.8 milliseconds—a task that would take a human calculator with a desk calculator approximately 20 seconds. For complex ballistics calculations that might take a human 20 hours, ENIAC could deliver results in 30 seconds.

The computer was originally conceived to calculate artillery firing tables for the Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory during World War II. Ironically, though construction began in 1943, ENIAC wasn't completed until after the war ended. However, it proved invaluable for other calculations, including early work on the hydrogen bomb and wind tunnel design.

The public demonstration on that February day was carefully choreographed. ENIAC performed a trajectory calculation in seconds that would have taken human computers several weeks. Reporters were dazzled as the machine's thousands of vacuum tubes glowed and flickered, watching what the press dubbed a "giant brain" at work.

Often overlooked in the initial publicity were the six remarkable women who programmed ENIAC: Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman. These pioneering programmers, originally hired as human "computers" to calculate ballistics trajectories by hand, figured out how to program ENIAC by studying its logical diagrams and physically manipulating switches and cables. Programming required intimate knowledge of the machine's architecture, as there was no programming language or stored program—every calculation required physically rewiring parts of the machine.

ENIAC represented a philosophical leap as much as a technological one. It demonstrated that electronic digital computation was not only possible but practical. While it had limitations—it was decimal rather than binary, and "programming" it initially meant physically reconfiguring it with cables and switches—ENIAC proved the concept and paved the way for the stored-program computers that would follow.

The machine operated until October 2, 1955, calculating everything from atomic energy calculations to cosmic ray studies. By the time it was retired, ENIAC had operated for 80,223 hours and performed more calculations than all of humanity had done up to that point in history.

So on this Valentine's Day, remember that in 1946, the world fell in love with a different kind of valentine—one that blinked with thousands of vacuum tubes and promised to revolutionize human civilization. ENIAC was the spark that ignited the digital revolution, making possible everything from smartphones to space exploration.


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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI