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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Colossus

I'm not sure that Colossus was a general-purpose computer. Most sources say that it was not. For instance, this says that it was a fixed-program computer. I bought the book Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers in 2011 but I haven't been able to find it. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 17:06, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

And this video says that Colossus was a special-purpose computer, as does this video. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:22, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
In my opinion, we need an article or a section in an article that talks about the various definitions of "first" we are using on various pages.
As an example, Bubba73 is correct in saying that Colossus was a fixed program computer, but a more accurate description would be that Colossus was not a stored-program computer. "fixed" implies that you cannot change the program. With Colossus, the program resided in the switches and plugs/jack and could be changed. The same is true of the early versions of ENIAC.
I do not believe that Colossus wasn't a general-purpose computer. General purpose is not the same as stored program. And "used for a special purpose" is not the same as "cannot be used as a general purpose device". The microcontrollers in your mouse and keyboard are general purpose devices used for a special purpose.
See this revert:[1]
See the description of Colossus at our Colossus#computing disambiguation page.
See ENIAC (1945)
See Colossus computer (1943)
See Atanasoff–Berry computer (1942)
See Z1 (computer) (1938) and Z3 (computer) (1941)
See Pascal's calculator (1645)
See Analytical Engine (Designed in 1837, never built [ but we are getting close[2] ] )
Our History of computing hardware article says "The castle clock, a hydropowered mechanical astronomical clock invented by Ismail al-Jazari in 1206, was the first programmable analog computer." (1206)
--Guy Macon (talk) 18:58, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
A "general-purpose" computer is Turing-complete. See Colossus_computer#Influence and fate. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)
But why do you define a "general-purpose" computer as being Turing-complete instead of the obvious "able to be reprogrammed for a wide variety of purposes"? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:49, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
A Turing-complete computer corresponds to our notion of what a computer is capable of doing, as in the Church-Turing Thesis. And a "wide variety" is not as broad. A general-purpose computer isn't limited in the domain of things that it can do. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 21:22, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Cost

The article has the following cost amounts:

  1. "having cost almost $500,000 (approximately $6,300,000 today)" done as plain text with an unknown date sometime in the past for "today"
  2. "The total cost was about $487,000, equivalent to $7,051,000 in 2018" calculated via {{inflation}} based on 1943 dollars
  3. "the final cost was almost $500,000 (approximately $6,400,000 today)" calculated via {{inflation}} based on 1946 dollars

Assuming $487,000 was rounded to $500,000 and acknowledging the problems of calculating 194x dollars as equivalent 2019 dollars, can anybody provide a consistent figure for today's cost?  Stepho  talk  08:12, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The CPI calculator gives $487,000 in 1944 US dollars as about $7,045,000 in 2019. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:21, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Who had the idea of the stored-program computer?

The article states:

Though the idea of a stored-program computer with combined memory for program and data was conceived during the development of ENIAC, it was not initially implemented in ENIAC because World War II priorities required the machine to be completed quickly, and ENIAC's 20 storage locations would be too small to hold data and programs

I'd be surprised if Turing was not aware of the value of combining program and data in the same memory well before WW2 (he sees no need in his original ACE proposal to spell out the value of computers being able to execute instructions they have calculated when he indicates his design makes it possible) and I guess that Zuse had also appreciated this before designing the Z3 (Zuse saw that compiling his Plankalkul was the kind of mechanical operation a souped-up Z3 could tackle). This quote should make clear who it was on the ENIAC team who had the stored-program idea we are talking about exactly. A source would be nice.

An annoying thing about the literature is how 'siloed' it seems to be: people who write about US computing machinery are generally distinct from those who write about the UK's, and then again about Zuse's work, and they use somewhat different language and emphases. I have some familiarity with the technical details of the ACE and Deuce and my reaction to reading about the US and German work is to ask questions like "in what way is it Turing complete?" (i.e., what does a translation from a standard TC-complete formalism to what the programmers input into the machine look like) and "how did the machine transform its input (e.g., Hollerith cards) into the internal electronic representation it worked with?"; this article's references do not indicate clearly which sources I should look at to get answers. I plan on providing better coverage for the ACE & Deuce machines, and with help from others, I think that Wikipedia could provide a well-grounded and cosmopolitan view. — Charles Stewart (talk) 11:20, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Part of the reason for the siloed and incomplete history of British computing is that everything that happened at Bletchley Park was hidden by the official secrets law until something like 1975, and even then not everything came out. The book Colossus edited by B. Jack Copeland is a must-read. It probably will answer some of your questions. He has also written a lot more on Turing. Good idea to work on this in WP. Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Ref 3 at Stored-program computer] says Presper and Eckert were well aware of the stored-program concept and advantages before the built ENIAC. Dicklyon (talk) 04:59, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
"I'd be surprised if Turing was not aware of the value of combining program and data in the same memory..." Putting the program and data in the same memory is not the same as a stored program. For instance, the Harvard architecture has data in memory but the program stored in different memory (which kind of makes better sense). Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:06, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Typical American Centric nonsensical const6ructed history with a political agenda

Article is woeful and reeks of 2017- onward social justice movement diatribe, history adjusted to suit political fads of gender equality and other US fixations on whitewashing to remedy the unfortunate actual past of humans being largely unpleasant to one another based on race, religion and sex. Readers are lead to believe Wikipedia is an electronic equivalent to Encyclopedia Britannica, an unbiased and historical source free from whatever contemporary foul winds of politics may blow- in this case Intersectionality. It is a great injustice to the reader and history in general that the plain unvarnished truth simply be told as is, a collection of dates and facts without the US inclination to "interpret history", "subjectivity of truth", etc as per Adorno and other members of the New Frankfurt School, Deconstructionism and Intersectionality.

Credit to the first computer should neither go to Colossus nor Babbage or any Bletchley Park code-cracking speciality machines- total and utter rubbish and classic British Royal Institue style over-reach-ophilia claiming fame for every major invention under the sun along with their beloved alchemist Newton (yes the majority of Newton's (https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_last_magician_isaac_newtons_dark_secrets: " Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire"; "'Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy; "Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd", The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy), output was Alchemy- he was a John Dee admirer very probably a consumer of Royal Kings' Drops (distilled cadaver cranium) and a certifiable lunatic).,
but the genius of Konrad Zuse, whose Z2 In September 1940 to experts of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (DVL; i.e. German Research Institute for Aviation) where Germany had multiple supersonic wind tunnels, and the Allies none, as they were at least a decade behind German aeronautics- see Whittle vs Ohain on the jet turbine, and how we to this day use Ohain and have rejected the Whittle concept of the radial to the Ohain axial compressor. The peer-reviewed Springer Journal of IFIP WG 9.7 International Conference on the History of Computing (Arthur Tatnall, Tilly Blyth, Roger Johnson Springer: 6 Des 2013: ISBN 9783642416507) held by academics in Computing History in esteem MUST THEREFORE BE ACCORDINGLY RESPECTED BY WIKIPEDIA AMATEUR HISTORIANS and HISTORIOGRAPHERS regardless of their personal biases. I quote the preface: "The HC 2013, held in London, UK, in June 2013, where 29 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers cover a wide range of topics related to the history of computing and offer a number of different approaches to making this history relevant..." This is the academia of History of Computing- their journals and publishing must rank as absolutely last-word in the area of computer history, no matter the opinions of non Computer Historians- their opinion, unless published and peer-reviewed, is mere anecdote and hearsay.

I quote from our learned friends of Springer : "Making the History of Computing Relevant: IFIP WG 9.7 International Conference, HC 2013, London, UK, June 17-18, 2013, Revised Selected Papers: page 287: Horst Zuse (author), url: [3]: "In this paper we describe the reconstruction of the Konrad Zuse Machine Z3 by the author Horst Zuse in 2008: "Today in the whole world, Konrad Zuse is almost unanimously accepted as the creator/inventor of the first free programmable computer with a binary floating point and switching system that really worked.

This machine called the Z3- was completed in his small workshop in Berlin (Krezberg) in 1941. Zuse's first thoughts about the logical and technical principles go back to 1934. Zonrad Zuse also created the first programming language (1942-1945) in the world called the Plankalkül. In 1949, he founded the company Zuse KG in Neukirchen (close to Fulda) and built till 1964 more than 250 computers for universities and research facilities. In 1934 Konrad Zuse formulated the first ideas on computing. The reason was the expensive calculations as a civil engineer. His idea was such stupid calculations should be done by machines and not by human beings. The first question, which Konrad Zuse discussed in 1934 was: "What mathematical problems should a computing machine solve?"

His answer was the following definition of computing (1936): "To build new specifications from given specifications by a prescription". In the year 1943 he expanded the definitions to: "Computing is the deviation of result specifications to any specifications by a prescription". From these definitions Konrad Zuse defined the logical architecture of his computers Z1 (1936-1938), Z2 (1938) and Z3 (1941-1945). From the beginning it was clear to him, that his computers should be freely programmable. This means they should read an arbitrary meaningful sequence of instructions from a punch tape and the machines should work in the binary digit system, because Konrad Zuse wanted to construct his computers with binary switching elements. Not only should the numbers be represented in a binary form, but the whole logic of the machine should work in a binary switching mechanism (0-1 principle)_ He planned a high performance binary floating point unit which allowed calculating very small and very big numbers with sufficient precision. He implemented a high performance adder with a one-step carry-ahead and precise arithmetic exceptions handling. He developed a memory where each cell could be addressed by the punch tape and could store arbitrary data, Finally, he constructed a control unity which controlled the whole machine and implement input and output devices from the binary to decimal number system and vice versa.

Parallel Machine: The Z3 was a parallel working machine. The 22 bits from the memory to Register R1 and vice evrsas were moved in one step (cycle). The same holds for the binary arithmetic unit, where among others, two parallel adders (exponent, mantissa) were used.

Memory: The memory of Z3 consisted of 64 words of 22-bits. Each word was directly addressable by the instructions Pr z or PS z, where z is the address in the range of 64<z<1. For each bit, a relay was needed

Floating point numbers: Konrad Zuse used floating point numbers .

Instructions: The Z3 disposed of the nine instructions

Arithmetic Unit and Carry Ahead: The arithmetic unit of the Z3 is Konrad Zuse's masterstroke. For the realization of addition (subtraction is an additions of the complement of one number and the number) Konrad Zuse implements a special switch because he wanted avoid too many cycles for the addition of two binary floating point numbers. USig the special switch, he could reduce the addition from at least 14 cycles with a serial addition down to three cycles with a parallel addition. Although there were only five instructions (Ls1, Ls2, Lm, Li and Lw) for arithmetic operations some more operations were implemented which could be called from the input device. He also simplified the execution of the arithmetic operations with consequences controlled by stepwise relays." (pages 287-290)

Our learned friends in Wikipedai [History of Computer Hardware} state: "In 1941, Zuse followed his earlier machine up with the Z3,[58] the world's first working electromechanical programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Z3 was built with 2000 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz. Program code and data were stored on punched film. It was quite similar to modern machines in some respects, pioneering numerous advances such as floating point numbers. Replacement of the hard-to-implement decimal system (used in Charles Babbage's earlier design) by the simpler binary system meant that Zuse's machines were easier to build and potentially more reliable, given the technologies available at that time.[61] The Z3 was probably a Turing-complete machine. In two 1936 patent applications, Zuse also anticipated that machine instructions could be stored in the same storage used for data—the key insight of what became known as the von Neumann architecture, first implemented in 1948 in America in the electromechanical IBM SSEC and in Britain in the fully electronic Manchester Baby."

"Zuse suffered setbacks during World War II when some of his machines were destroyed in the course of Allied bombing campaigns. Apparently his work remained largely unknown to engineers in the UK and US until much later, although at least IBM was aware of it as it financed his post-war startup company in 1946 in return for an option on Zuse's patents. "

I have demonstrated teat ENIAC's claims are based in wishful and magical thinking not fact, and that Colossus while a massive resource dump for British Intelligence and a major national ego back-pat, is not acknowledged by the computer history academia as being as Horst Zuse states: "Today, the Z3 is widely acknowledged as being the first fully functional automatic digital computer"

Furthermore Colossus was not one computer but a set of computers and let's notice the paradoxes of the opening paragraph of the Wikipedia article: "Colossus was a set of computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean and counting operations. Colossus is thus regarded[3] as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer, although it was programmed by switches and plugs and not by a stored program.[4] ALTHOUGH IT WAS PROGRAMMED BY SWITCHES AND PLUGS NOT A STORED PROGRAM NOR LANGUAGE. The prototype, Colossus Mark 1, was shown to be working in December 1943 and was in use at Bletchley Park by early 1944. An improved Colossus Mark 2 that used shift registers to quintuple the processing speed, first worked on 1 June 1944, just in time for the Normandy landings on D-Day. Ten Colossi were in use by the end of the war and an eleventh was being commissioned.[7] Bletchley Park's use of these machines allowed the Allies to obtain a vast amount of high-level military intelligence from intercepted radiotelegraphy messages between the German High Command (OKW) and their army commands throughout occupied Europe."

Z1, Z2 and Z3 (1941) all predate Colossus (1943), all used a binary system and a programmable language of Zuse own contrivance Plantalkül (Plan Calculus). Colossus therefore excludes itself as " it was programmed by switches and plugs and not by a stored program".


Further buttressing Zuse's neglected position in computer history is the following material from the Wikipedia article {Konrad Zuse]: "Plantalkül slightly influenced the design of ALGOL 58[29] but was itself implemented only in 1975 in a dissertation by Joachim Hohmann.[30] Heinz Rutishauser, one of the inventors of ALGOL, wrote: "The very first attempt to devise an algorithmic language was undertaken in 1948 by K. Zuse. His notation was quite general, but the proposal never attained the consideration it deserved"."
From [History of computer hardware] "Zuse suffered setbacks during World War II when some of his machines were destroyed in the course of Allied bombing campaigns. Apparently his work remained largely unknown to engineers in the UK and US until much later, although at least IBM was aware of it as it financed his post-war startup company in 1946 in return for an option on Zuse's patents."

Let's grow up and give credit due to whom it is due.Pickypedian (talk) 19:18, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

...Because walking into a talk page where experienced editors are working towards making a good, accurate article and unloading a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS wall of text and insulting everybody who is working on the article is a great way to improve Wikipedia. Your only problem is that you didn't go far enough. You need to call us a bedwetting telemarketing nazi cabal. That will surely[4] convince everyone! --Guy Macon (talk) 21:01, 22 April 2019 (UTC)


Multiple supersonic wind tunnels?!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.160.12 (talk) 11:20, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

Acronym

I was getting annoyed by the recent too-ing and fro-ing between "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer" and "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Automatic Computer", so I went to the 1947 patent at https://patents.google.com/patent/US3120606A/en . It is listed there as "ELECTRONIC NUMERICAL INTEGRATOR AND COMPUTER".  Stepho  talk  03:00, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

It is not like there are not two linked ref superscripts right after the name. This falls into the category of obvious vandalism, although there are some who refuse to acknowledge that. Robert K S (talk) 03:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes it has to be made blatantly obvious.  Stepho  talk  04:13, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
You are correct Stepho-wrs but the confusion has always been there. Back when I was doing my electronics training back in the late 70s, by which time I had worked on PDP-8, PDP-11, CDC 160 A and built my own EDUC-8, even some of the textbooks (not that there were many then!) included both "Analyzer" and "Automatic" with "Automatic" being the far more common of the two. The anonymous editor's edits today were certainly not vandalism, they were just misinformed/misguided. Jim Rowe, who designed the EDUC-8, had similar issues with people calling it the "E-DuCk-8". Fun times. --AussieLegend (✉) 07:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
While I don't have any knowledge about the particulars of this I can suggest that you consider a footnote to explain the discrepancy between the wording used. One example is how the infobox mention of Wendy/Walter Carlos is dealt with at the A Clockwork Orange (film) article. Just a suggestion mind if the WP:CONSENSUS is to leave things as they are that is fine as well. MarnetteD|Talk 14:43, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Since the IPs aren't joining this thread you might ask for a WP:RFPP until they do. MarnetteD|Talk 14:43, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
The most recent book on it, the thoroughly researched ENIAC in Action, says "... Integrator And Computer" (page 1). Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:29, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
My two computer science textbooks from the 1970s plus Encyclopedia of Computer Science agree. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 17:01, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
I added a short hidden comment (visible only when editing) to the article saying "Official sources (eg, the US patent) have 'And' for the 'A'. Not 'Analyzer' or 'Automatic'." It probably wont stop every change but at least now we can say that they had to skip over something blatantly obvious when they changed it. I don't feel that it is worth cluttering up the reader visible article with explanations but I also won't stand in the way if others feel such an explanation is wanted. As suggested above, WP:RFPP page protection may help in the short term.  Stepho  talk  02:14, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm leaning toward putting a footnote for the reader. Others may wonder about it, or it may conflict with what they've gotten from another source. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:28, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
The type of people that get confused by this sort of thing very rarely read footnotes. If you want to make it clear to all readers then it has to be inline with the main text.  Stepho  talk  04:31, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
My experience from TV articles is that it's a losing battle but you always have to try. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:46, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Order of the names

Why are the names Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Meltzer, Fran Bilas, and Ruth Lichterman not presented in alphabetical order? Simsong (talk) 18:16, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Recent edit/revert to lede , "fifteen seconds"

A source for "The Eniac did it in exactly fifteen seconds." T. R. Kennedy, Jr., "Electronic Computer Flashes Answers, May Speed Up Engineering," The New York Times, 15 February 1946, https://www.nytimes.com/1946/02/15/archives/electronic-computer-flashes-answers-may-speed-engineering-new.html and https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1946/02/15/93052340.pdf Also from the story, "... a very difficult wartime problem... The Eniac completed the task in two hours." This Times story is also cited in the Later developments section of the present article. Dgorsline (talk) 12:27, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Picture

Not my turf, guys, but maybe you could be interested in this picture:

Randroide 17:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, fun picture, more relevant to a discussion of the evolution of computer hardware than the ENIAC itself. Robert K S 00:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The first woman from the left has a module of 1 byte of memory in their hands. (perhaps mistakenly) I think every women on the picture is presenting 1 byte of memory of diffrent ages.
Just to be clear, the person third from left is not Ruth Teitelbaum. That ID and upload, which stayed up on the Ruth Teitelbaum article for years without being caught, was made by an account that has since been deleted for sockpuppet activity. Robert K S (talk) 16:39, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Glen Beck in picture

On the first image, the caption reads "Glen Beck (background) and Betty Snyder (foreground) program ENIAC in BRL building 328. (U.S. Army photo)" Who is this Glen Beck? (not to be confused with Glenn Beck the US conservative commentator) There is no re-direct page at Glenn Beck's page towards Glen Beck; let alone a page, even a stub in Wikipedia that depicts his life. Even a quick Google search is befuddled with results from the contemporary Beck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.252.179.230 (talk • contribs) 2013-01-26T15:17:29‎

I just noticed this as well. I'm pretty computer literate, although don't know that much about the very earliest days and I've never heard of a computer scientist named Glen Beck. My guess is someone vandalized the page. I'm going to be wp:bold and change it and just leave Betty's name. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
The name is accurate and genuine. [5] We might also surmise that Beck's wife's name was Milly. Robert K S (talk) 13:39, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
A recently uncovered primary source shows that this person's name is, contrary to the caption on Mike Muuss's photo page, actually spelled with two "N"s. Robert K S (talk) 16:31, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Here is a find-a-grave for the same Glenn A. Beck (1930-2001). Robert K S (talk) 18:37, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Cite 3, 4 and 11 links are dead (404 errors), there are way back machine archives, but im not sure how to go about implementing them:
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.phy.ornl.gov/csep/ov/node10.html
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/2021*/https://www.ushistory.org/more/eniac/public.htm
[11] https://web.archive.org/web/2021*/https://www.ushistory.org/more/eniac/public.htm
LuckyMiner01 | I'm new here, so if I make a mistake, please tell me, here, so I can learn from it. 16:52, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Look at reference 2 "The ENIAC story". It has archive-url and archive-date. Do the same thing for references 3,4 and 11. We will help out if you have trouble, so be bold! There is some documentation at {{cite journal}}, {{cite news}} and {{cite web}}.  Stepho  talk  21:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

"The First What?" Round 15

I am proposing (that we revert to): ENIAC was the first electronic general-purpose computer. For a little while, but not too long, the ENIAC page has opened: "ENIAC was amongst the earliest electronic general-purpose computers made. " This is incorrect, there were no other computers at that time that were both electronic and general-purpose, so it was "the first" of that description. "It was amongst the earliest computers" might also be correct - but all of the other early computers on Wikipedia are proudly opening with a bold first. For example -- here's the current rundown, as of March 27, 2019:

The Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer. Colossus is thus regarded[3] as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer The Z3 was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Manchester Baby, was the world's first electronic stored-program computer.

So in line with that, we go back to the two adjectives that set it apart from the others: ENIAC was the first electronic general-purpose computer.

I realize there has been a war between "the first computers" on Wikipedia, going back a decade or more, so I do not do this "lightly." I think this accurately reflects what the majority of historians and Wikipedia editors think. I was considering also adding that it was the biggest and most bad-ass looking, but refrained. Zebbie (talk) 00:50, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it was the first electronic general-purpose computer. Earlier general-purpose computers were electo-mechanical. ABC and Colossus were special-purpose computers. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:42, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree, artillery tables and bomb calculations aren't what I could call general purpose. General purpose computer isn't a clearly defined, common term. I was disturbed this entry currently seems like all the books I read growing up which made the mistake ENIAC was first because Colossus was still secret. I think we have a very good argument for first electronic digital Turing-complete computer, perhaps general purpose with the later addition of stored programs, but it wasn't the first at that either. I really feel it would be better to go back to mentioning Colossus in the introduction. I'm American, but after visiting Bletchley Park I really feel Tommy Flowers should get his proper due and we shouldn't mince definitions like Chekhov from Star Trek to give the US more credit than it deserves. "it vas Russian, Sergey Lebedev, who invented fyirst computer"

Is there clear proof that the ENIAC team knew about and built onto the design of Colossus or not? Chadnibal (talk) 11:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Colossus was definitely a special-purpose machine. ENIAC was built for calculating artillery tables but it wasn't limited to that. The first major work done by ENIAC was on calculations for the design of the hydrogen bomb (nothing like artillery tables). In at least one of the books about ENIAC there is a list of all of the different types of programs it ran. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that there is no actual consensus or authoritative source for what was the "first" computer in this context and it's kind of ridiculous that multiple Wikipedia pages make competing claims. It would actually make more sense, and be less confusing for readers, if they were ALL edited to say something along the lines of "amongst the earliest electronic general-purpose computers made". 2406:E002:6CBA:EB01:89B1:FA73:359C:C0FD (talk) 00:22, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

1800 sq ft

There seems to be some confusion over the size of 1800 sq ft. Rcallen7@ contends that the 1800 figure was derived from the physical dimensions of 3 ft x 8 ft x 100 ft. But those dimensions give 2400 cu ft, not 1800. The 1800 sq ft figure comes from the reference https://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL-e-h.html#ENIAC which states "Space occupied, Computer 1800 sq ft". I take this to be the floor space of the entire main room that the computer sits in, with maybe a hint that other spaces are used for air conditioning plants, power generating/conditioning plants, etc. Looking at the photos of that room, 1800 sq ft (about 42 feet x 42 feet) for that room looks reasonable.  Stepho  talk  02:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm working from memory here, but the main part consisted of 40 cabinets (not counting the function tables and periphials), I think they were 3 feet deep and 2.5 feet wide (I need to look that up). That is about 300 square feet for the footprint of ENIAC. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:17, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Page 92 of the book ENIAC by Scott McCartney gives a diagram of how ENIAC was laid out in the room, in a U shape. The back wall held eight cabinets, and there were about 3.5 feet on each side, so the back wall was about 27 feet wide. There were 16 cabinets along each side wall, so that makes 40 feet, but the diagram shows the card equipment extending beyond that, so the room is more than 50 feet long. So that makes the room at least about 1400 square feet. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:50, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
Actually the room has to have been wider than that because they had to get to the back of the cabinets for servicing, so the room must have been at least 35x50, which is 1,750 square feet, which is in good agreement with the 1800 figure. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:16, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

{{outdent}

Do we need to say that it occupied 300 square feet? That can be directly calculated from the length and depth. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:17, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Although we should clarify that 1800 sqft is for the room rather than the machine itself.  Stepho  talk  00:07, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
  1. ^ https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ruth_Teitelbaum
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