COMPUTING DEVICES

(II)
20TH century computing devices
 ENIAC
 

In 1946, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert completed the

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). It was the
first general purpose computer. ENIAC contained 18,000 vacuum
tubes, weighed 30 tons, occupied 1800 square feet of floor space and
required 160 kilowatts of electrical power. The ENIAC used punched
card for input and output. ENIAC was used by US for hydrogen bomb
project and programming.
 EDVAC
Features and components
The EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) is the
successor of the ENIAC and was made by the same designers: John
Mauchly and Presper Eckert in 1949. 
Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal.
It was the first designed stored  program computer with memory
capacity of 1000 words (later set to 1,024 words, thus  giving a
memory, in modern terms, of 5.5 kilobytes). It contains 6,000
vacuum tubes and consumed 56 KW of power and covered 490
square feet of floor space.
UNIVAC 1
 

Features and components

The UNIVAC 1 (Universal Automatic Computer 1) was invented by
John Mauchly and Presper Eckert in 1951. The machine was 25
feet by 50 feet in length, contained 5,600 tubes, 18,000 crystal
diodes, and 300 relays and had an internal storage
capacity 1,000 words  or 12,000 characters. It utilized a Mercury
delay line, magnetic tape, and typewriter output.  Magnetic tape
was still used for input and output. It was the first commercial
computer.
 EDSAC – Electronic Delay Storage
Automatic Computer
EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was an early British
computer (one of the first computers to be created). The machine, having been
inspired by John von Neumann’s seminal EDVAC report, was constructed by
Professor Sir Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge
Mathematical Laboratory in England.
EDSAC was the world’s first practical stored program electronic computer,
although not the first stored program computer (that honour goes to the Small-
Scale Experimental Machine).
 ABC
ABC, the first elec­tronic digital computer, was invented by John v. Atanasoff and
his assistant Clifford Berry and thus the name Atanasoff Berry Com­puter (ABC).
Earlier, ENIAC was considered to be the first electronic com­puter until in 1973 a
U.S. District Court invalidated the ENIAC patent. Thus, ABC is the first electronic
digital computer. However, because ABC is a special purpose computer and not
programmable, ENIAC still is the first general purpose electronic computer.
 It is the ABC that first implements the three critical features of
modern computers:
 ü  Using binary digits to represent all numbers and data
 ü  Performing all calculations using electronics rather than wheels,
ratchets, or mechanical switches
 ü  Organizing a system in which computation and memory are
separated.
Class Activity
State the features and components of the following devices
Desktop Personal Computer
Laptop and Notebook Computers
Palmtop computers