the ENIAC

Question 1

What problem did the US army face in 1943?

Answer 1

There was a lack firing tables for its guns.

Question 2

What was a firing table?

Answer 2

a table giving the elements of standard trajectories for a particular gun and type of ammunition and for effects produced by conditions (as of temperature or wind) that are not standard

Question 3

Was it easy to create firing tables?

Answer 3

It required a lot of manual calculations and lots of human computers.

Question 4

Where were firing tables mainly made?

Answer 4

Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland (had access to a Differential Analyzer machine)

Question 5

Who was hired to fix the firing tables problem?

Answer 5

Herman Goldstine. he was faced with many problems with the temperamental Differential Analyzer so he entertained the idea of the electronic computer.

Question 6

Who was John Mauchly and what was his role in the firing table problem?

Answer 6

Mauchly was hired because of his idea of developing a fully electronic and Goldstine was desperate for a fix to his problem.

Question 7

Who was Mauchly joined by?

Answer 7

Presper Eckert (a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania)

Question 8

Who was involved in the proposal of the next machine?

Answer 8

Goldstine, Mauchly, and Eckert

Question 9

What was the proposal?

Answer 9

Funding to build an electronic computer

Question 10

What did the proposal eventually become?

Answer 10

the ENIAC(electronic numerical integrator and computer)

Question 11

Who was hired to work on the ENIAC?

Answer 11

12 people were initially assigned to the specific parts of the project (all of them in their 20s and 30s)

Question 12

Who was the lead engineer for the ENIAC?

Answer 12

Eckert – he was a stickler for quality control

Question 13

What were some problems faced?

Answer 13

vacuum tubes were used to modulate or amplify electric current and it has two states (on or off) and they were prone to breaking down

Question 14

What were the solutions?

Answer 14

using the highest quality tubes and running them at only 10 percent of their intended voltage

Question 15

How was the ENIAC superior to its formers?

Answer 15

1) it was speedy (performed all its calculations electronically)
2) conditional branching
3) perform any type of calculation

Question 16

Who were the programmers on the ENIAC?

Answer 16

six women (called operators)

Question 17

Before even finishing the ENIAC, what were Eckert and Mauchly thinking about?

Answer 17

their next computer –the EDVAC

Question 18

How did John Von Neumann get involved in the ENIAC?

Answer 18

goldstine met neumann at the Aberdeen train station in 1944, neumann then stopped by the UoP to see the ENIAC and assert his influence

Question 19

Where was John Von Neumann’s influence really felt?

Answer 19

during the creation of the EDVAC

Question 20

What were the plans for the EDVAC?

Answer 20

1) larger memory
2) store both the program’s data and instructions in the same memory
3) instructions would be represented as binary codes

Question 21

When was the ENIAC finished?

Answer 21

fall of 1945

Question 22

When was the formal unveiling for the ENIAC?

Answer 22

feb 1946, hosted by the army and the UoP

Question 23

What happened after the ENIAC became more well known?

Answer 23

1) UoP sponsored a summer school called the “Moore School Lectures” to teach the principles of electronic computing
2) neumann went back to IAS in Princeton and started her own computer research group (made the IAS computer finished in 1951)
3) many believed that neumann was the sole author of the First Draft