Eniac software hardware

This is the 20th anniversary of this event and I have enjoyed the information-packed sessions, the crowded expo halls, and the insightful keynotes. And as I am prone to do, I am focusing on someone from the earliest days of software. This week is no different. Even if you are heavily steeped in an open source life and history this individual may not be someone you immediately recognize or consider a great thought leader.

He was, however, incredibly influential in his day and many from the time period would have instantly known his name and the things for which he was responsible. Our Thursday Thinker for this week was full of big ideas and was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in. Possibly most importantly he held to his beliefs about the nature of software and its freedom of availability and usage. John Mauchly was in this regards one of the earliest open source advocates and proponents in the age of computer software though not directly in a way you would suspect.

John was interested in science from his earliest days and excelled in his high school classes, particularly those dealing with math and science. He was known for being willing to tackle hard problems and you could always find him tearing things apart to understand how they worked before re-assembling them fully functioning. He was particularly good at electrical systems and would often help others in the neighborhood when an electrical problem would arise. Education and research was always something considered important in the Mauchly family and the pursuit of sciences was a part of his life from the earliest days when his father accepted a position with the Carnegie Institution in Washington D.

Upon high school graduation he successfully applied for and received a scholarship to attend John Hopkins to study engineering. Once there however his interest in the study of applied sciences caused him to switch to a Physics course of study and in a rather untraditional fashion he bypassed his undergraduate degree and successfully completed his Ph.

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Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. By Mary Bellis Mary Bellis. Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Learn about our Editorial Process. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. Bartik jumped at the chance and was hired as one of the original six programmers of ENIAC, the first all-electronic, programmable computer. With ENIAC's 40 panels still under construction, and its 18, vacuum tube technology uncertain, the engineers had no time for programming manuals or classes. Bartik and the other women taught themselves ENIAC's operation from its logical and electrical block diagrams, and then figured out how to program it.

They created their own flow charts, programming sheets, wrote the program and placed it on the ENIAC using a challenging physical interface, which had hundreds of wires and 3, switches. It was an unforgettable, wonderful experience. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The presentation featured its trajectory ballistics program, operating at a speed thousands of time faster than any prior calculations. The ENIAC women's program worked perfectly - and conveyed the immense calculating power of ENIAC and its ability to tackle the millennium problems that had previously taken a man years to do.

It calculated the trajectory of a shell that took 30 seconds to trace it. No one gave them any credit or discussed their critical part in the event that day.