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ENIAC Simulator

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77 pointsnanna18 comments

There is a much more accurate, pulse level simulator available: https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls96/eniac/eniac.html

Unfortunately I know no simulator of the stored program ENIAC.

Eniac in 1949(?) set a world record for computing digits of pi, something like 2000 digits in 70 hours. The previous record was a hand calculation of about 700 digits done by Shanks over a period of years in the 19th century. It turned out (per the Eniac and later calculations) that the hand calculation went wrong at around the 500th digit and I think was completely wrong after that.

I wonder if the code for that Eniac calculation is still around, and if the emulator can run it. That would be cool.

Added/update: per Wikipedia, in the late 1940's but before Eniac, some records (600 to 1100 digits) were set using electromechanical desk calculators. That was also when the error in Shanks' calculation was discovered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_computation_of_%...

I found the book Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer by Scott McCartney a pretty good read:

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/720730

I would strongly suggest to read "ENIAC in Action" from Thomas Haigh. It's by far the most technically complete book about the ENIAC.

You'll even find some code samples from 1948 on the website.

https://eniacinaction.com

I highly recommend "Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World's First Modern Computer" for more context about how the ENIAC came together. It includes the point of view of the programmers of the ENIAC who are often left out of or diminished in other accounts.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kathy-kleiman/provi...

That's a good book, I can recommmend it.

I also recommend the review by Jean Bartik (i.e. Betty “Jean” Jennings Bartik, 1924-2011) about the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3K2DSB6UE1X7H/re...

Which is the first computer that was built? Eniac or Zuse?

It really depends on how you define a computer.

Have a look at the Wikipedia article. For some reason the French one appears to be the most complete, it even describes every unit of the machine and features some comparison with the EDSAC, SSEM, EDVAC, Zuse and Colossus.

https://fr-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/ENIAC?_x_tr_s...

There are many earlier computers than ENIAC.

ENIAC has been claimed to be only the first electronic computer, i.e. made with vacuum tubes instead of relays or other electromechanical devices, which decreased the switching times from milliseconds to microseconds.

Some earlier electromechanical computers, including those of Zuse and those of Aiken, had structures much closer to a modern computer than ENIAC, except that they used distinct kinds of memories for the program and for the data. The name "Harvard architecture" for the computers with separate program and data memories comes from the electromechanical computers of Aiken, who worked at Harvard.

While ENIAC can be considered the first really useful electronic computer, it has been preceded by another more special-purpose electronic computer, that of John Atanasoff, which had a structure dedicated to solving systems of algebraic equations.

Moreover, the development of the Atanasoff computer and of the ENIAC computer (both in USA) has been made possible by the previous invention of various kinds of electronic counters, made with vacuum tubes or gas tubes, which had been invented by several physicists who had worked in UK in the research of nuclear and cosmic radiation, during the decade preceding WWII.

The priority of the Atanasoff computer was used to invalidate the patents related to ENIAC, as a result of the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand lawsuit. The conclusion of the lawsuit was deserved by the ENIAC team, because one of them had visited Atanasoff, gaining useful intel about how to design the electronic circuits of the future ENIAC, but then in multiple occasions they have attempted to present their work as more original than it really was, omitting any references to their prior sources of inspiration.

ENIAC received a big budget due to the war, which resulted in a machine very big and very fast for those times, which has been used to solve a great number of important mathematical problems.

Nevertheless, in the few documents that have remained from the Atanasoff-Berry university project, Atanasoff demonstrated a much clearer understanding of the problems of automatic computing than the ENIAC team, like also von Neumann would demonstrate later. An important contribution of the Atanasoff computer was the invention of the dynamic memory, which was made with discrete capacitors, but it was nonetheless the ancestor of the current DRAM memories.

The inadequate memory capacity was the greatest disadvantage of ENIAC, which was immediately noticed by von Neumann. It was very fortunate that von Neumann had the opportunity to study the ENIAC project, because he had the vision of the future that the ENIAC team lacked.

The ENIAC team has been obsessed more with how to monetize their experience in the ENIAC project than about how to improve their computer and they were annoyed that von Neumann has explained publicly to anyone how to make better electronic computers, which has started a great number of projects for developing electronic computers, not only in USA, but also in many other countries.

Thanks for the great write-up! The Atanasoff-Berry machine gets overlooked in many histories. Part of the problem of obscurity comes from the fact that the PhD student (Berry, IIRC) finished his thesis, so, you know, reclaiming the lab space seemed more important than the machine's place in history, and it got dismantled.

There are many first computers, depending on what adjectives you apply. The "official" claim is that ENIAC is the "first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer". For an interesting exploration of what computer is first under what definition, see the interactive website https://www.gleech.org/first-computers

I highly recommend the book "ENIAC in Action" for a thorough discussion of the computer.

Personally, I view ENIAC as the first influential computer, in the sense that it made multiple groups decide to build computers and thus started the computer revolution. If you went back in time and stopped ENIAC, it would have set back computing by years; the impact of earlier computers was small.

For what it's worth, the word "electronic" in that description is a lot more load-bearing than it looks, excluding machines such as the Harvard Mark I (ASCC) and Bell Labs Relay Computers, both of which were solving problems under program control years earlier (unlike the Eniac, which initially had to be rewired for every problem -- stored-program control was added years later).

I forget the details, but I recall this video on the Colossus- a very secretive program that resulted in arguably the first programmable digital computer (iirc). I think we only relatively recently learned of it's existence?

https://youtu.be/g2tMcMQqSbA?si=bW059oO6B4H1GR_R

It was very worth the watch, lots of fascinating tidbits including some stories of unsung heroes / geniuses. It was kept secret even after WWII but the people involved went off to kickstart the computer industry in England

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