ENIAC, страница 3

The National Science Foundation has several computer exhibits in the United States and Europe, containing portions of the ENIAC. Efforts are being made to have the U.S. Army Office of Military History declare the ENIAC as historical-interest property. It is hoped that this progenitor of a new industry--the key which opened new avenues of approach to solutions of many perplexing scientific problems, the device which pioneered the evolution of high-speed digital computing and automatic data-processing machinery--will be preserved for posterity.

Looking back over the years from 1939 to the fateful evening of October 2, 1955, one can clearly see the life cycle of an enterprise. A need existed for faster computing speeds, and Army Ordnance had made known this need to the Moore School.

Mauchly and Eckert suggested an electronic digital computing design which Gillon believed was worthy of the fullest Ordnance support. Eckert supervised construction. Coders, programmers, and engineers made it run and produced useful results which otherwise would have been unattainable. The rapid progress of computer technology, spurred by the ENIAC itself, soon made the device obsolete.

Thus ended the life of the once glorious pioneer in the field of digital computation. As stated in the June 1958 report of the Operations Research Office of the Johns Hopkins University, entitled "Defense Spending and the U.S. Economy:" "The present electronic computer industry is the direct product of Army-sponsored research...," resulting in the ENIAC, "the first modern electronic computer." It's death was a natural one--it had served its purpose.