ENIAC High Speed Multiplier Panel 2
date: label: Date made
content: 1947-02-12
name: label: maker
content: University of Pennsylvania
notes: label: Description
content: The ENIAC was built by a team of engineers at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania between May 1943 and February, 1946. The team was working under contract for the Ballistics Research Laboratory of the U.S. Army Ordnance Department. The name ENIAC is an acronym of Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. Principal engineers on the project were J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. When complete, ENIAC filled a room measuring 30 feet by 50 feet and weighed 30 tons. It used around 18,000 vacuum tubes of 16 types, 1500 relays, 70,000 resistors, and 10,000 capacitors. It was 8 feet high, 3 feet wide, almost 100 feet long (if stretched out), and consumed 140 kilowatts of power. Construction costs were around half a million dollars.
label: Description
content: The Army commissioned ENIAC to perform a specific function: computing ballistics tables for aiming Army artillery. Creating accurate tables was a laborious process of solving differential equations for hundreds of positions and configurations for each gun. When the ENIAC project was started, human "computers" (largely women) were performing the calculations by hand with mechanical calculators, and they were falling hopelessly behind schedule. If the operations could be done in a pre-programmed sequence by an electronic machine, not only would they be completed faster, but results should include fewer errors than hand calculation.
label: Description
content: By the time ENIAC was finished, the war was over, and the original goal was no longer a pressing matter. All along, however, the development team realized that what they were creating in ENIAC was much more than a special purpose calculating device.
label: Description
content: This is a panel from the high speed multiplier for the machine.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CI.308932.439
label: accession number
content: 308932
label: catalog number
content: 308932.439
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Mainframe Computer Component
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 102 in x 24 in x 24 in; 259.08 cm x 60.96 cm x 60.96 cm