Eniac, the First General-Purpose Digital Computer, Turns 80

Eniac was indeed impressive and an important milestone. I recommend the 1999 book "ENIAC - The triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer" by Scott McCartney which is both interesting to read and very informative. Also the review of the book by the late Jean Bartik, one of the "computers" and thus an eyewitnmess, is very interesting: https://web.archive.org/web/20221101120020/https://www.amazo....

Though the article is very US focussed, keeping quiet that German engineer Konrad Zuse completed the Z3 in May 1941, five years before ENIAC, effectively creating the world's first working programmable and fully automatic digital computer. While ENIAC required days of manual cable patching to program, the Z3 was quickly programmed by a punched tape ("Lochstreifen"), and Zuse also has invented Plankalkül between 1942 and 1945, which is widely recognized as the world's first high-level programming language. The cooperation between Zuse and ETH Zurich eventually led to the first self-compiling compiler and eventually Algol 60 (see "The European Side of the Last Phase of the Development of ALGOL 60" by Peter Naur in ACM SIGPLAN "History of Programming Languages" from 1978). And there was also the British Colossus, which was also a "programmable computer" and successfully utilized vacuum tubes for code-breaking by early 1944.

The shortened title is very incorrect.

What the article says is different: "the first large-scale, general-purpose, programmable electronic digital computer".

The claim of the article can be considered correct, and "electronic" is a part that cannot be deleted from it without falsifying the claim.

Before ENIAC, there have been digital computers that were much more general-purpose, because they run programs written on punched tape, instead of requiring a rewiring like ENIAC.

ENIAC, which evolved from the analog computers known as differential analyzers, had a structure closer to an FPGA than to a modern digital computer.

In contrast, an earlier relay computer like Harvard Mark I was intended as a successor of the mechanical digital computer designed by Charles Babbage, so it already had the same structure with a modern digital computer, except that it used different kind of memories for data and for programs, hence the name "Harvard architecture". The same was true for the Zuse computer.

The earlier ABC digital computer was electronic, but it can be considered as special-purpose, not general-purpose. The first relay computers at Bell Labs may also be considered as special purpose.

ENIAC was very important but this article overstates its significance and ignores other (non US) machines to the point of historical inaccuracy. No mention of Z3 or Manchester Baby for example, the latter based on the von Neumann paper for example, was arguably a more accurate pointer towards how computer architecture would develop.

Zuse Z3 enters the room, relais' kindly rattling "Hrm. I was digital. not electronic as in cathode tubes but definitively digital."

> The computer contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes, which were cooled by 80 air blowers. More than 30 meters long, it filled a 9 m by 15 m room and weighed about 30 kilograms. It consumed as much electricity as a small town.

Surprisingly light though...

Unfortunately, if the subject doesn't have "AI", no one cares.