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Atanasoff
(Atanasoff-Berry Computer)
Build
date - 1939/42
Stats
- 700 lbs, 300 vacuum tubes, a mile
of wire
Calculation speed -
One operation every 15 seconds
Cost
of full-scale model - $850
Extra
information - Before its development
came Konrad Zuze's Z1 mechanical binary computer in 1936, used
as the foundation for future calculator technology. Zuze, an engineer
in Germany during World War II, then completed the Z2 in 1939,
the first fully functional electro-mechanical computer. In the
same year, at Iowa State University, Professor John V. Atanasoff
and a graduate student named Clifford Berry began building the
world's first electronic-digital computer. It would incorporate
a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative
memory, and a separation of memory and computer functions, innovations
not seen before in the ABC's predecessors. The size of a desk,
the ABC was too large to go anywhere, and thus remained in the
basement of the physics department of ISU. The war effort in 1942
prevented Professor Atanasoff from finishing the patent process
and doing any more work on his computer. In the end it was dismantled
when the department needed more space.
In
the game Brave Tamer, the ABC, called simply Atanasoff, was the
true creator of the Digital World, though all the credit went
to ENIAC. It acted in the shadows as the silent foundations on
which the world was built. When ZeedMillenniumon succeeded in
depleting ENIAC's power, it's Atanasoff alone that prevents him
from taking over the past.
ENIAC
(Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator)
Build
date - Commissioned in 1943, unveiled
in 1946
Stats
- 30 tons, covered 1800 square feet.
Contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors,
1,500 relays, 6,000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints.
Consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power and caused brownouts
in Philadelphia when it was turned on.
Calculation speed -
5,000 additions, 357 multiplications or 38 divisions in the span
of a single second.
Cost
of production - $500,000
Extra
information - ENIAC had been built
on the grounds laid out by Professor Atanasoff and his ABC. It
had been commissioned by the US military to aid in the war effort,
but the war was over by the time ENIAC was completed. Instead,
it was used to calculate hydrogen bomb designs, weather prediction,
cosmic-ray studies, thermal ignition, random-number studies and
wind-tunnel design. Fast it may have been in its day and age,
but programming was a tedious process spanning weeks, and the
machine required long hours of maintenance. Modifications were
made to it over time, and its creators Eckert and Mauchly moved
on to work on the BINAC and UNIVAC. It was finally shut down and
retired at 11:45 p.m., on October 2, 1955.
Possibly
to reflect the patent infringment issues between ENIAC and ABC
(Sperry Rand vs. Honeywell, 1973), the game thus does not mention
Atanasoff until the shut-down of ENIAC by ZeedMillenniumon's forces.
Until then, ENIAC is seen as the Creator, a tangible god in the
Digital World keeping an eye out on the dimensions rendered in
the future. Likewise, the ENIAC was seen as the first patented
digital computer. However, the patent was voided as derivative
of Professor Atanasoff's ABC. While Professor Atanasoff was generous
in stating that credit for the invention and development of electronic
computers should go to all involved, Eckert and Mauchly still
to this day receive most of the credit for the creation of the
first electronic-digital computer.
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