Eniac

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The earliest electronic general-purpose digital computer developed in the 1940s; a pioneering machine that performed large-scale numerical calculations automatically; a landmark in computing history representing the transition from mechanical to electronic data processing
2. An initial large-scale computing device built to execute complex arithmetic operations electronically; a foundational computer that marked the dawn of modern computing; a significant engineering achievement demonstrating programmable automatic calculation
3. A first-generation electronic computer designed for general computational tasks; a historic example of early automation in numerical problem-solving; an influential apparatus that established many concepts of digital computing technology

Etymology: ENIAC was not a word that grew up in speech; it was built as an acronym, and the name was chosen for a machine that was already famous before the letters were settled. ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, a name given to the machine completed at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1945. It was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army, and its builders, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, filled it with some 18,000 vacuum tubes. The name's real claim to fame is its status as a pattern. Because it was announced publicly in 1946, "ENIAC" became the shorthand that many people used for the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, though later research showed earlier machines such as Colossus, used in Britain during the Second World War, were electronic too and that ENIAC's legal and historical standing was contested. Its name was then borrowed as a model for later acronym-style machine names.

Synonyms: Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer