On February 14, hearts in love all over the planet celebrate Valentine's Day. But many do not even suspect that they are sharing this holiday date with keyboard and mouse workers - computer specialists.
Day of the geek: who is the customer?
In 1946, specialists from the University of Pennsylvania, after three years of painstaking work, presented the first fully functioning electronic computer performing mathematical tasks - ENIAC I. All previous analogs of this computer were experimental and did not bring any practical benefit. The customers of this project were the American military, who needed accurate ballistic calculations of the flight path of ammunition.
ENIAC I stands for Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator.
Prior to this invention, the United States Army had a special job as a "military calculator," that is, a person who calculated mathematical operations and compiled tables. However, not a single person, even if he is seven inches in the forehead, can do calculations with the speed of an electronic machine.
A professionally trained person with a calculator or computer could calculate only sixty flight paths per day, while a new computing device - ENIAC - coped with this task in just half a minute. He could sum, compare, subtract, multiply numbers, and also extract square roots from them. Therefore, the invention of the computer contributed primarily to the development of the military industry of the United States of America.
Legacy for posterity
For six years, from 1949 to 1955, the first computer benefited the US Air Force and Army. And at the beginning of October 1955, ENIAC I, accompanied by the sounds of a march, with army honors, was taken to a "retirement" - to the museum of the American Military Academy.
By the way, for his "grandchildren" "grandfather" left a binary number system, on the basis of which all modern computers work. That is why even today, every February 14, computer scientists from all over the world celebrate their professional holiday, remembering the kind words of cyberneticists and professors of the University of Pennsylvania.
In addition to the Computer Engineer's Day in Russia, there is another official holiday for workers in this area - the Programmer's Day, which is celebrated on the 256th day of the calendar year, that is, 12 (in a leap year) or 13 September.
Also worthy of gratitude are their colleagues who managed to significantly reduce the weight of a personal computer (the weight of ENIAC was about 27 tons).
