Computers & Networking

1950 - The first commercial computer Sold!

mwebb — 2007-10-01T21:51:12Z

Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101, the first commercially produced computer; the company´s first customer was the U.S. Navy. It held 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, the earliest magnetic storage devices. Drums registered information as magnetic pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. Read/write heads both recorded and recovered the data. Drums eventually stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second. read more...

ERA 1101 drum memory - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum

The National Bureau of Standards constructed the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) in Washington as a laboratory for testing components and systems for setting computer standards. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units (shown on the right of this photo) stored programming information, coded subroutines, numerical data, and output. read more...

SEAC - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum

The National Bureau of Standards completed its SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles. Rather than testing components like its companion, the SEAC, the SWAC had an objective of computing using already-developed technology. read more...

SWAC - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum

Alan Turing´s philosophy directed design of Britain´s Pilot ACE at the National Physical Laboratory. ';We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus,'; Turing said at a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery in 1947 in Cambridge, Mass.

Start of project:	1948
Completed:	1950
Add time:	1.8 microseconds
Input/output:	cards
Memory size:	352 32-digit words
Memory type:	delay lines
Technology:	800 vacuum tubes
Floor space:	12 square feet
Project leader:	J. H. Wilkinson

1946 - ENIAC and AVIDAC

mwebb — 2007-10-01T21:30:36Z

	In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries.Start of project: 1943 Completed: 1946 Programmed: plug board and switches Speed: 5,000 operations per second Input/output: cards, lights, switches, plugs Floor space: 1,000 square feet Project leaders: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. read more...
ENIAC - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum
	An inspiring summer school on computing at the University of Pennsylvania´s Moore School of Electrical Engineering stimulated construction of stored-program computers at universities and research institutions. This free, public set of lectures inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, later, IAS machine clones like the AVIDAC. Here, Warren Kelleher completes the wiring of the arithmetic unit components of the AVIDAC at Argonne National Laboratory. Robert Dennis installs the inter-unit wiring as James Woody Jr. adjusts the deflection control circuits of the memory unit. read more...
AVIDAC - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum

1943- Whirlwind Project

mwebb — 2007-10-01T21:13:06Z

Project Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital computer. By the time the Whirlwind was completed in 1951, the Navy had lost interest in the project, though the U.S. Air Force would eventually support the project which would influence the design of the SAGE program.

1942 - The Atanasoff-Berry Computer

mwebb — 2007-10-01T21:11:40Z

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is completed. Built at Iowa State College (now University), the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was designed and built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. While the ABC was never fully-functional, it won a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer when Atanasoff proved that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to see the ABC shortly after it was completed. read more...

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer - Image courtesy of Computer History Museum