Today in 1946, The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope in ENIAC in Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer:
ENIAC established the feasibility of high-speed electronic computing, demonstrating that a machine containing many thousands of unreliable vacuum tubes could nevertheless be coaxed into uninterrupted operation for long enough to do something useful.
During an operational life of almost a decade ENIAC did a great deal more than merely inspire the next wave of computer builders. Until 1950 it was the only fully electronic computer working in the United States, and it was irresistible to many governmental and corporate users whose mathematical problems required a formerly infeasible amount of computational work. By October of 1955, when ENIAC was decommissioned, scores of people had learned to program and operate it, many of whom went on to distinguished computing careers.
On February 15, 2011, IBM’s Watson “commented” on the results of his successful match the previous night with two Jeopardy! champions: “There is no way I’m going to let these simian creatures defeat me. While they’re sleeping, I’m processing countless terabytes of useless information.”
The last bit, of course, is stored in “his” memory under the category “Oscar Wilde” who lamented that “It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
Wilde would have subscribed to this newsletter. If you haven’t already, what’s keeping you?