Quote:
|
Originally Posted by BusterBunny
you win yours is bigger  |
Yeh ENIAC was monstrous.
Some more info on it:
The ENIAC was a decimal machine operating internally on base ten only, using pulse trends to transmit information around. So, to send a nine from one bank of circuits to another bank of circuits, the ENIAC would send nine pulses down the wire, all synchronized by a master clock. This machine sped along at a gargantuan 5,000 operations a second in fixed point only. It is roughly comparable to an HP45 calculator. Internally, it stored 20 ten-digit numbers, all operating in base ten, and there was no central memory at all. When the machine was originally designed, it was actually a data-flow computer. Numbers moved through the machine along the wiring banks from calculation point to calculation point.
The ENIAC was a gargantuan beast made from over 19,000 vacuum tubes. Here you can see some poor technician of the day trying to figure out which one to replace -- a job I don't envy him at all. To interface to the IBM card punch equipment took 15,000 relays because IBM used high current circuits to run all their accounting machines, and the vacuum tubes could not sink enough current in order to please IBM.
ENIAC used 175 kilowatts of power, and it lasted about 5.6 hours, according to the historical reports, between repairs.