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Hardware Technology

How the World's First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap 126

Posted by Soulskill from the one-man's-trash dept.
anavictoriasaavedra sends this quote from Wired: "Eccentric billionaires are tough to impress, so their minions must always think big when handed vague assignments. Ross Perot's staffers did just that in 2006, when their boss declared that he wanted to decorate his Plano, Texas, headquarters with relics from computing history. Aware that a few measly Apple I's and Altair 880's wouldn't be enough to satisfy a former presidential candidate, Perot's people decided to acquire a more singular prize: a big chunk of ENIAC, the "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer." The ENIAC was a 27-ton, 1,800-square-foot bundle of vacuum tubes and diodes that was arguably the world's first true computer. The hardware that Perot's team diligently unearthed and lovingly refurbished is now accessible to the general public for the first time, back at the same Army base where it almost rotted into oblivion.
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How the World's First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap More

How the World's First Computer Was Rescued From the Scrap Heap

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  • Ross Perot is awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Obscene_CNN ( 3652201 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:20PM (#48463115) Homepage
    Ross Perot is awesome! Damn shame that Clinton got elected.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by stox ( 131684 )

      If it wasn't for Perot, Bush I would have probably been elected.

      • It's a common belief, but it's not true. In exit polls, when Perot voters were asked who they would have voted for if Perot wasn't on the ballot, they were split nearly 50/50.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1992#Analysis

        • But there was a second vote, which is a puzzling as a non US reader.
          It's the first time I hear of Ross Perot!, and I had no idea a third candidate did 19%. Clinton only did 43%, and Bush 37.4%. A second round ought to have taken place between Clinton and Bush so that one of them gets over 50%. Well, I have just forgot about the Great Electors system and so there was a sad entirely blue vs red US map anyway.

          • "But there was no second vote" I meant. sorry.

          • I have to agree that if we had a runoff system, people would probably stop complaining about the elector system that they know nothing about. Having a de facto two party system is simply not working. We probably should get rid of physical electors to streamline the process, but the idea of citizens electing their president through the states is a logical, consistent one.

    • At first I read your comment as a clever, sarcastic comment, but now I'm not so sure.

      Ross Perot has always struck me as complete tosser, if you'll excuse the expression. This story only confirms my view. What really sets me off is the scale of stupid luxury - the kind of stuff you spend money on, despite the fact that you don't actually like it or have any use for it, but simply because you want to show others that you are rich enough to throw money around stupidly. If he had bought the whole computer, had

      • ENIAC anagram solver output: H. Ross Perot == Short Poser

      • Did you actually read the article? He didn't ask for the ENIAC, specifically. They could have just grabbed an old IBM, but the guy assigned the project kicked it up a few notches. Parts of it are still unaccounted for, and one panel they recovered was destroyed. The missing panels would have to be recreated from plans-- if they still exist-- and the existing ones would have to be extensively repaired.

        • Did you actually read the article?

          No - I wasn't commenting on the actual article, but on the apparent fawning over the way an obscenely rich person casually wastes money on expensive, but fundamentally worthless decorations. A bit like when some 'artist' exhibits a few rotting pig carcasses in a glassbox, and it turns out there actually are people in the world, who combine wealth with a stupidity to the extent that they will pay tens to hundreds of thousands of USD for it, 'because it is art'. I find it genuinely hard to understand that any

      • Parts of ENIAC are in the Smithsonian and the Computer History Museum. I think there are some other places, too. So, he could get the whole thing. I doubt you can get the parts to make it work. However, some university did make an "ENIAC on a chip".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      He was also a conspiracy theorist who had the money to indulge his paranoid fantasies.

      He had the phones of his own employees tapped. He hired private investigators to spy on his friends and family, and to dig up dirt on friends of his children he didn't approve of. He went beserk when he found out the designer of the Vietnam Memorial was an Asian American, calling her racial slurs and hiring lawyers to harass the veterans who supported her.

      This is a man who thinks that both the Carter and Reagan administr

      • Administrations did hide the fact that POWs were still in Asia.

        Getting them out would be hard at best and not guaranteed. Therefor, the best move in their opinion was to just get it out of site so it would be out of mind.

        Same things have happened many times since on both side of the aisle. Inconvenient things are tossed aside to be forgotten. If they are not forgotten quickly enough then they are hidden.

      • I bet he just thought it was ironic that the memorial designer was asian. I think that is actually kind of funny that a crusty old Texan would say something like that. You are right. He should just be a suit that reads a teleprompter and has no natural personality and all ways at all times has a PR/PC filter. Do you imagine what you look like to people you don't care about all the time and not say what you mean? That is the politically correct thing to do. You throw out the racist/conspiracy theorist

        • I believe he called Maya Lin "eggroll" or "wonton" or something. That is not really that bad. Old Texans talk like that.

          "Hitler wasn't really that bad. There were plenty of other anti-semites in Old Germany."

    • An absolutely wonderful human being. Incredibly demanding of and loyal to his people.
      • Sad thing is that the 2 companies that he founded are now digested by 2 other once great American companies. EDS is today a part of HP, and Perot Systems a part of Dell. Both, as well as IBM, have been taken to the cleaners by the likes of Infosys, TCS and Wipro.

  • Except... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SkunkPussy ( 85271 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:23PM (#48463129) Journal

    ...it wasn't the first computer.

      • Re:Except... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arth1 ( 260657 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:37PM (#48463225) Homepage Journal

        Several years later than this one:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z... [wikipedia.org]

        The Z3 was the first electromechanical gp computer
        The ABC was the first electronic non-gp computer
        The Colossus was the first electronic gp computer
        The ENIAC was the first American gp computer.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Indeed. In a very real sense, the US was late to this game. Of course they would revise history to obscure their failure.

          • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by cold fjord ( 826450 )

            Actually the US suceeded in producing a electronic gp computer in that era. It was Germany that failed, which you seem to be trying to obscure.

            I'm curious, what is it that drives your pathological hatred of the US? Did a US tank on a NATO exercise run over your dog or something? Insecure about Germany's place in the word? Bitter about the Wall falling and communism failing?

            • As far as Zuse's Z3 is concerned, it was not so much failure as in ineptitude as it was more unlucky circumstances. Zuse could just not get his hands on enough tubes and relais that could be diverted from the war industry and were still usable. That is the sole reason why he opted for mechanical memory made from flattened out coffee cans. Zuse was well capable of building a fully electronic GP computer and would have done so if he had the parts for it. Along with the Z3 came also the first GP programming la

              • That was a great post, but it contained one error. Slashdot user gweihir is hostile towards the US, regularly making nonense or hostile comments that add nothing to the discussion.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dave420 ( 699308 )
                  Correcting knee-jerk nationalism is not being hostile towards the nation in question. You ignored the evidence that the original claim was incorrect simply because someone who agrees with it is, according to you, "hostile towards the US". Pathetic. How are you even an adult? You have the logical acumen on a child arguing about Pokemon.

        • Re:Except... (Score:4, Informative)

          by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @10:36PM (#48464361)
          Before you younguns turn this into a "those silly Americans" thread, Colossus was absolutely essential to breaking the Nazi Enigma code and was classified during and after WWII. ENIAC was therefore regarded worldwide as the world's first general purpose computer. Everyone who went to school before 1996 was taught that ENIAC was the world's first GP computer.

          Information about Colossus was first declassified in 1975, but it wasn't until 1996 (not coincidentally 50 years after WWII ended) that enough about it was declassified for the general public to realize it was in fact the first GP computer.

          • Re: Except... (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Which is all well and good, but why does that make it ok for you guys to keep claiming that it was?
            Also the first stored program computer i.e. the direct ancestor of what we all recognise as a modern day computer, was also made in the UK at Manchester University. The Difference Engine was from the UK too. So.....if you guys could kindly stop claimng you invented computing, when it was quite obviously Babbage and Turing, that would be really great.

            • No one claims America "invented computing", you crass buffoon.
          • Colossus was built to deal with the higher value, lower volume and more difficult Lorenz SZ40/42 electronic teletype machine ciphers known as "Tunny".

          • Either way though the Z3 beat them both out. It definitely fits the only reasonable definition of a computer: Turing complete but with limited memory, though this is possibly something of a cheat. It predates either of those two.

            History, however is written by the winners.

            If you don't know about the Z3, you should read about it. Konrad Zuse was a bit of a dude to put it mildly, with a long list of inventions.

            The Z1 was "just" a programmable calculating machine. He built it from sheet metal in his parent's li

          • Everyone who went to school before 1996 was taught that ENIAC was the world's first GP computer.

            It depends where you went to school. I was taught that EDSAC was the first fully programmable computer. Earlier devices (including ENIAC) had to be physically re-configured to run each different program using cables and switches, rather than just loading a new program into the same memory that is used for data.

            Even if we had known about Colossus at that time (and it is possible that some of my teachers did...) it would not have qualified as a stored-program computer.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by arth1 ( 260657 )

              It depends where you went to school. I was taught that EDSAC was the first fully programmable computer. Earlier devices (including ENIAC) had to be physically re-configured to run each different program using cables and switches, rather than just loading a new program into the same memory that is used for data.

              I thought the Manchester "Baby" preceded EDSAC?
              While it was limited compared to its successors, it did have stored programs.

              (Also, the Z3 could be programmed from tape, but it was electromechanical and not electronic.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Chrisq ( 894406 )

          Several years later than this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z... [wikipedia.org]

          The Z3 was the first electromechanical gp computer The ABC was the first electronic non-gp computer The Colossus was the first electronic gp computer The ENIAC was the first American gp computer.

          Except the Z3 was German

        • Baby (the SSEM) was the first stored-program, electronic, general purpose computer.

          For the current definition of a computer Baby was the first computer.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        From the wiki page:
        "Colossus was the first of the electronic digital machines with programmability, albeit limited by modern standards.[34]

        It had no internally stored programs. To set it up for a new task, the operator had to set up plugs and switches to alter the wiring.
        Colossus was not a general-purpose machine, being designed for a specific cryptanalytic task involving counting and Boolean operations.
        A Colossus computer was thus not a fully general Turing complete machine"

        ENIAC was a *general purpose* co

        • We computer people get boners for things that can, at least in the theoretical model anyway, simulate a Turing machine.

        • ENIAC had no internally stored programs, To set it up for a new task, the operator had to set up plugs and switches to alter the wiring.

          (ENIAC was later modified to use a program stored in what was effectively ROM, but that wasn't how it was originaly designed or built, and made it run slower as it stopped the parallel features working).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megol ( 3135005 )

      Exactly. Depending on how one defines computer there have been analog machines with misc. mechanisms long before the Eniac. Decimal machines of different complexities was created 1600-1900.
      Even if one uses a definition closer to a modern computer the Zuse V1 (later renamed Z1) was working in 1938 and used binary representation with floating point numbers.

    • Colossus wasn't general purpose, so ENIAC was the first general purpose.

  • the first built in the US (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:24PM (#48463133)

    not the world's first.

  • ENIAC wasn't the first (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:24PM (#48463135)

    ENIAC wasn't the first electronic programmable computer. Colossus was. It was used for code breaking in WW2. Colossus Mark 1 was up and running by December 1943, and Mark 2 (using shift registers to increase speed) was up and running by June 1944. The only reason people think of ENIAC instead of Colossus, was that Colossus's existence was kept secret up until the 1970s. By that time ENIAC got all the publicity.

    • Re:ENIAC wasn't the first (Score:4, Informative)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @06:28PM (#48463179) Journal
      The Manchester "Baby" is also claimed to be the first true computer. Both Colossus and ENIAC are not full computers in the way we understand them now.
    • Colossus wasn't general purpose.

      • As I've said several times through this thread - yes, it was. What it couldn't do (that ENIAC could) is store its program.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ottibus ( 753944 )

          What it couldn't do (that ENIAC could) is store its program.

          Nope, ENIAC couldn't do that either:

          "The freeze on design in 1943 meant that the [ENIAC] computer design would lack some innovations that soon became well-developed, notably the ability to store a program."

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Fail. The Z1 was the first programmable computer, finished in 1938 by Zuse himself, on private funding.

      • Fail. The Z1 was the first programmable computer, finished in 1938 by Zuse himself, on private funding.

        Yes, but he didn't fail, because that's not what he said. He said first electronic programmable computer. The Z1 (and successors) were electromechanical. Still impressive in their own right, true, but nothing like the electronic computers that were invented later.

        • Yes, but he didn't fail, because that's not what he said. He said first electronic programmable computer. The Z1 (and successors) were electromechanical. Still impressive in their own right, true, but nothing like the electronic computers that were invented later.

          Indeed, the Z1--Z4 were not much like the electronic computers built shortly later. They were in fact much more like the electronic computers built *decades* later.

          Bear in mind that Eniac was a decimal machine, whereas the Z? machines were binary.

          • Except for those pesky,slow mechanical relays... and total lack of conditional branches.

            • Except for those pesky,slow mechanical relays... and total lack of conditional branches.

              Firstly, the thermionic valves of ENIAC are about as far from transistors as electromechanical realays (bar speed and vacuum channel transistors). Second, the Z4 had conditional branches.

              The Z4 is far more like a modern computer architecturally than ENIAC, and given that one can make the logic elements out of whatever is to hand. Zuse AG later sold transistorised versions of the Z4.

  • Making ENIAC run again (Score:3)

    by erice ( 13380 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @07:07PM (#48463399) Homepage

    Gleason realized early on that he couldn’t make his portion of ENIAC run actual calculations—such an endeavor would require all 40 panels

    I wonder if Gleason of other preservationists have considered building functional replicas of the missing panels. Doing so would be the first step is bringing the relics to life again as a functioning computer.

    Of course, that would not be the end of the project:

    , not to mention thousands of new components and technical know-how that had long been forgotten.

    But perhaps a workable project to restore ENIAC to working order could inspire the re-discovery of such knowledge. Often of technical knowledge thought to be lost is not really lost, just misplaced. Somebody knows or knows who knows but they need to be inspired to come forward or follow up on their hunch.

    • Somebody knows or knows who knows but they need to be inspired to come forward or follow up on their hunch.

      Slight problem: ENIAC was built about 70 years ago and most of the people who were involved in its construction are dead. It's really hard to inspire dead people enough to get them to come forward.

  • I couldn't focus on the story (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @07:08PM (#48463407)

    That giant sucking sound coming from the south was interfering with my concentration.

  • 1941: Zuse Z3 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Binary (not decimal like the ENIAC), floating point unit, touring complete, programmable via tape. Nothing came close for years.

  • Essentially lost: only 8 out of 40 panels (Score:4, Insightful)

    by unimacs ( 597299 ) on Tuesday November 25, 2014 @07:31PM (#48463523)
    So essentially ENIAC is lost.

    What's left is only a quarter of the original machine that's been turned into some light show. The other 3/4 of the panels are owned by other people or are gone entirely. While I'm not saying it wasn't worth doing or that it wasn't hard work, it's not what I would call "refurbished".

    It's like digging up a skeleton and having someone rig up a motion detector to play recorded phrases and move the jaw as people walk by it.

    Unfortunately there seems to be a period of time where things are just old and past their usefulness, - their historical significance takes more time for people to appreciate. I understand that a true restoration would be hugely impractical, but it would be cool.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rinikusu ( 28164 )

      I suppose someone could rig up a raspberry pi and add a bunch of sleep() counters to simulate the actual computing speed and give you the "simulation" of using the real deal, right?

    • Essentially lost: only 8 out of 40 panels (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Or you can get ENIAC on a chip:

      http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~jan/eniacproj.html

      much less space and easier on the electric bill too.

      • That's what I thought - can't a bottom of the line FPGA be programmed to simulate the ENIAC, and do everything that the ENIAC did? Minus the 100V tubes and all that power guzzling equipment?

  • ENIAC is merely the first _electronic_ computer. The Zuse Z1 was the first programmable computer, and it was built on private funds, by Zuse himself.

  • I had a chance to bid on an ENIAC at a Government auction, Looking at it, while it would be cool to have and show off, my entire 3 bedroom ranch house with an extension wasn't big enough to store it in; had to pass for obvious reasons.

    I did ask about it, the high bid was $300 but refused as the precious metals were worth more than that.

    But I did have a chance :}

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious ( 953874 )

      you "could of had one" ?
      Sorry, English is not my native language, why do you have the word "of" doing in that structure?

  • Now we can see it in colors... Did IBM name "Deep Blue" after that?
  • ENIAC was the first digital ELECTRONIC computer. There had been relay monsters built before it.

  • Perot didn't rescue anything. They just found a few panels and wired them up with blinky lights, Hollywood style.

    Here's a list of the ENIAC parts and their locations (from Wikipedia):
    The School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania (where the ENIAC was built in 1943 and operated until 1947) has four of the original forty panels and one of the three function tables of ENIAC (on loan from the Smithsonian).
    The Smithsonian has five panels in the National Museum of American History

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