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Fine-tuning ENIAC. J. Presper Eckert (the man in the foreground turning a knob) served and John Mauchly (center) designed ENIAC to calculate the trajectory of artillery shells. The machine didn't debut until February 1946, after the end of World War II, but it did launch the computer revolution.
Courtesy of the Computer History Museum.
The ENIAC and its makers
See footage of the ENIAC's creators with their computing machine in action, bright lights, vacuum tubes and all.
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"I was already wearing a plastic pocket protector and thick black glasses--taped together--so I didn't need something to increase my social dysfunction."
"I bought my first computer when I was 15 in 1980. It was an Apple II, which back then was the most popular PC in the U.S."
"I still had to re-key them everytime I wanted to change programs, but this wasn't too bad as the TI-58 only had enough memory for about 240 instructions."
What was your first computer?
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Editors: Kari Dean McCarthy; Mike Yamamoto
Production: Bernie McGinn; Jennifer Guevin; Vincent Tremblay
Design: Ellen Ng
