Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — One of the most important pieces of computing history can be found inside a classroom in Pennsylvania.
Inside the Moore Building on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus, stands ENIAC, known to be the first programmable, electronic computer. Its construction was finished in 1945.
Historian Paul Shaffer says, “The University of Pennsylvania is very proud to have started all this and we like to think this was the start of the information age!”
Four of ENIAC’s panels and one instrument table are housed in the Moore Building at the University of Pennsylvania. Originally, the computer which was unveiled in 1946, took up an entire laboratory and had 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighed more than 30 tons!
It was designed and built to handle computations for the military’s artillery firing table, which prior to ENIAC would take hours.
It was called “Giant Brain” by the newspapers at the time and was in operation up to 1955, eventually being moved to Aberdeen, Maryland.
Notably, six women were chosen by the university to be programmers of ENIAC and they played a vital role in the development and usage of ENIAC throughout the years.
Students walk by and study right next to this vital piece of computing history everyday.
While Silicon Valley in California boasts the tech industry’s giants , it’s easy to forget that it all started here in Pennsylvania all those years ago.
For more information on ENIAC and how it ushered in the digital age, please check out https://www.seas.upenn.edu.