Today in Technology History
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June 14
On June 14, 1951, the UNIVAC computer was formally unveiled. It was the first computer intended for commercial use.
UNIVAC, the UNIVersal Automatic Computer, was built by engineers John William Mauchly (1907-1980) and John Presper Eckert, Jr. (1919-1995).
They had designed and built the ENIAC, the first entirely electronic computer. Now their plan was to build a machine that was faster, smaller and easier to use -- so that it could be mass-produced and sold to businesses. They spent the late 1940s working on it.
The result of their labors, the UNIVAC, was a room-sized machine: 14 feet long, 8 feet deep and 8.5 feet high. It weighed under 10 tons, and had over 5,200 vacuum tubes. Instead of using slow punch cards to input data, UNIVAC was the first computer to use magnetic tape. A high-speed typewriter printed out the results of calculations.
These features were important to potential customers who might want to use the computer for billing or inventory applications.
Not only was UNIVAC faster than any previous computer, it was more reliable, too -- because it performed calculations twice and compared the results. After months of testing, the first UNIVAC was purchased by the U.S. Census Bureau; it was officially dedicated exactly 50 years ago in Washington, D.C.
UNIVAC was the first computer that was not one of a kind. The first few UNIVACs were sold to the U.S. government and military, and after 1953 some were sold to businesses. In all, 46 UNIVACs were produced before they became obsolete.
Related links:
Click here for a brief history of the UNIVAC.
Click here for a more detailed history of UNIVAC.
Use these links to read the Encyclopedia Britannica entries for Mauchly and Eckert.
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