ENIAC
In 1943, the U.S. Army launched an ambitious project to accelerate its ballistic calculations. The war was in full swing, and artillery firing tables, vital for bombing accuracy, required endless calculations. The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania was tasked with creating a radically new machine under the direction of John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
Named ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), this machine marked a break from electromechanical calculators. Its development mobilized tremendous energy: approximately 200,000 hours of work were needed to produce, in November 1945, a technological monster. Too late to serve during the war, ENIAC nevertheless stood out as an unprecedented engineering feat.
The numbers are staggering: 30 tons of equipment spread over an area of 150 m2, 40 large panels housing 18,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, 10,000 capacitors, and 6,000 manual switches. Unlike Atanasoff’s ABC, which used binary, ENIAC directly manipulated 10-digit decimal numbers. Its memory consisted of accumulators, each storing one number, supplemented by function tables for constants.
ENIAC was programmed in a rudimentary and tedious manner. Thousands of switches had to be set and hundreds of cables plugged in, an operation that could take several days. Once configured, however, its performance was astonishing: 5,000 additions or 385 multiplications per second, shattering the records of existing machines.
On February 14, 1946, a carefully orchestrated press conference unveiled ENIAC to the world. The effect was striking. Newspapers went wild, calling the machine a "giant brain," a "magic brain," or a "meteor calculator." For the first time, the media attributed quasi-human capabilities to a machine. This anthropomorphization captured the collective imagination, despite Mauchly’s attempts to temper the enthusiasm by reminding people that ENIAC simply performed calculations without truly "thinking." The myth was born, the machine capable of solving all problems had appeared.
What the public didn’t know was that ENIAC drew heavily on the earlier work of John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. As later revealed during a sensational trial, Mauchly had visited Atanasoff in 1941 and studied the ABC in detail, borrowing several fundamental concepts without ever crediting the inventors. This controversy over the paternity of the electronic computer remained buried for decades, while ENIAC reaped all the honors.
ENIAC was also the first computer programmed by women, another little-known reality. Female mathematicians and physicists, previously employed as human "computers" to perform calculations by hand, were selected for their excellence. Six of them became the first programmers in history. They developed the initial programs and performed countless calculations, often in the shadows, their contribution remaining long ignored.
The Cold War offered ENIAC a second life. Installed at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, it served for the originally planned ballistic tables, as well as for calculations related to the first thermonuclear bombs. Its ability to rapidly solve complex equations accelerated research in nuclear physics and other scientific fields.
Although retired from service in 1955, ENIAC left a lasting imprint on the development of computing. It stimulated research in the United States, both in hardware and theory. The lessons learned from its design directly inspired more advanced machines like EDVAC and UNIVAC. Meanwhile, figures like John von Neumann, Alan Turing, and Claude Shannon developed the theoretical foundations that would structure the discipline.
ENIAC’s influence extended far beyond American borders. Its media coverage made the world aware of the potential of electronic computers. Similar projects emerged in the United Kingdom, the USSR, Germany, and Japan. Within a decade, computing transitioned from experimental to industrial. The concept of "computer" became embedded in popular culture, mixing fascination and anxiety about these "electronic brains" with mysterious capabilities.
ENIAC’s story took a twist in the 1970s. A sensational trial, pitting Honeywell against Sperry Rand (holder of the ENIAC patent), revealed Mauchly’s appropriation of Atanasoff’s ideas. The judge ruled in 1973 that ENIAC was not the first electronic computer and invalidated its patent, thereby placing the invention in the public domain. This legal decision had critical consequences for the subsequent evolution of computing.
The cancellation of the ENIAC patent unleashed tremendous innovation potential. Deprived of exclusivity over fundamental concepts, laboratories and companies had to rely on specific technical improvements rather than legal protection of basic ideas. This situation fostered a remarkable flowering of competing machines: IBM, DEC, Control Data Corporation, and others rushed into the breach, each offering their vision of computer architecture. Without this decision, the digital landscape might have resembled an industry dominated by a few patent holders imposing their conditions on the market. Computing instead took a unique path where foundational principles remained accessible to all while specific innovations could be protected. This singular dynamic partly explains the stunning speed at which computers evolved from multi-ton monsters to personal machines, then to the mobile devices we now know.
This shift in the perception of calculating machines was perhaps ENIAC’s most enduring contribution, despite its contested paternity. In short order, the public image of computers was radically transformed: from simple calculating tools, they became entities potentially capable of surpassing human intelligence. This vision, though exaggerated, guided computing research for decades to come, notably with the emergence of artificial intelligence in the 1950s.