Ross Perot’s decision to decorate his Texas headquarters with relics of computing history, has brought life to the first computer, The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer).
The 27-ton, 1,800-square-foot ENIAC was developed by the American military in 1945 to calculate artillery-firing tables for different weapons under varied conditions and was declared obsolete in 1955. It could execute 5,000 instructions per second, a capability that made it far superior to other electromechanical devices at that time, but as you would expect, It’s a tad bit slow by todays standards; An iPhone 6, can zip through 25 billion instructions per second.
A restoration project, led by Dan Gleason got underway in 2006 . He embarked on his task by repainting the panels, fitting new lamp bulbs (600 to be exact) and also installing a massive steel frame to keep the panels secure. As most of the other parts were either missing or destroyed, The ENIAC could not be restored to its former self but Gleason managed to enable the ENIAC to complete tasks like figuring out the best flight paths for howitzer shells.
it’s great that this pioneering piece of technology wasn’t lost and forgotten in history.
