From: luvisi at gmail.com (Andru Luvisi)
Subject: [COFF] Happy birthday, John Mauchly!
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019 12:08:16 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAObyg6bga=-tK7QwTTvafL6KcXUDFsyhdmoHyfthGwBAGdbZiA@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1908301224390.12543@aneurin.horsfall.org>
We can split hairs about which early computing devices first implemented
which automatic computing ideas, but I hope I can make 2 statements without
much controversy.
The ENIAC was the first device to be automatic, electronic,
general-purpose, and digital. That combination contained synergies that
were more than just the sum of the features.
In particular, the ENIAC advanced the state-of-the-art in computing speed
by 3 orders of magnitude, from 5 or 6 additions per second to 5000
additions per second.
I gave a talk in 2012 about early computer history, and a substantial
portion was dedicated to the ENIAC.
Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS_yVXcK_aM
Here's the handout:
http://web.sonoma.edu/users/l/luvisi/somehist/somehist.pdf
Andru
On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 7:30 PM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> We gained computer pioneer John Mauchly on this day in 1907; he was best
> known
> as the co-inventor of ENIAC, one of the world's first computers.
>
> -- Dave
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-08-30 19:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-08-30 2:30 dave
2019-08-30 19:08 ` luvisi [this message]
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2018-08-30 0:35 dave
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