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Topic spans: 1945 - 1993
Computer Invasion: A History of Automation in Canada
Described as "gigantic brains," computers were once so big they filled entire rooms. It all started with ENIAC, the world's first computer, that cracked and buzzed and weighed 27 tonnes. By the 1960s, ordinary Canadians were fascinated with these new high tech devices: IBMs could set up blind dates, select Christmas presents and mysteriously dispense money. A novel idea until computer technology replaced real people on the job. These days computers continue to revolutionize — this time changing the way people communicate by way of the Internet.
The U.S. army photo of the ENIAC computer is in the public domain.
7 television clips
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Meet ENIAC, the world's first computer
Broadcast Date: Feb. 12, 1996
At 27 tonnes and the size of an entire room, America's first large-scale electronic computer is just as elaborate as its name suggests: ENIAC, or Electronic Numerator Integrator Analyser and Computer. True to form, ENIAC also makes big noises, cracking and buzzing while performing an equation of 5,000 additions. Before the invention of ENIAC, it took a room full of people to calculate a similar equation.In this CBC Television clip for ENIAC's 50th birthday, technology columnist Tom Keenan explains: "War was on and they actually had to plan for ballistic calculations... so they used to have rooms full of people, mainly women actually, who were trained to a certain level of mathematics and they were called 'computers.'"
Meet ENIAC, the world's first computer
• ENIAC spanned nearly 17 metres and filled most of a 9-by-17 metre room. It could perform 38 divisions and 357 multiplications in less than a second.• ENIAC was noisy and emitted an incredible heat because it had 17,000 vacuum tubes — sealed glass containers conducting electrical currents.
• Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania first invented ENIAC for the U.S. army in 1945.
• ENIAC was based on a device called the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), devised one year earlier for the U.S. Navy.
• International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) debuted ASCC in 1944. ASCC was a complex calculator invented by Harvard University. It weighed 4.5 tonnes and measured 15.5 metres.
• IBM unveiled its first calculating machine in 1938.
• The Complex Number Calculator was the first remote machine to perform simple math equations.
• In 1946, computers took just two hours to equate what it used to take 100 engineers a whole year to do.
• Although the sophistication of computing machines vary, all of them are based on a similar model. A desktop computer is more elaborate than a car odometer but both work on a system that tallies numbers.
• ENIAC's power is overshadowed by today's calculator, which contains more memory than the early computer.
• By 1971, Intel had developed a 12-millimetre computer chip with 12 times the capability of ENIAC.
• ENIAC is credited as being the first "large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems." But several other similar machines were developed in the early 1940s. These included Germany's Z3, America's Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) and Britain's Colossus computer.
Meet ENIAC, the world's first computer
Medium: Television
Program: Midday
Broadcast Date: Feb. 12, 1996
Guest(s): Tom Keenan
Host: Brent Bambury
Duration: 6:22
Event date: Invention of ENIAC, 1946
Last updated:
Oct. 3, 2007
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computers · technology · suzuki · high tech · internet
Not many Canadians Know that Canada designed and manufactured the FP (FerrantPackard) 6000 in the 1960's.This computer is one of the few in the world that used discrete components. Each transistor was in its own can. Production was stopped when deifenbacker stopped funding its development.This was done at the same time as he stopped the Avro Arrow.
An engineer came to Canada from Ferranti's in England. He was the engineer who taught me the design of the Ferranti Pegasus computer. This was the first and ast tube computer I worked on. I taught him the design of the FP6000. He took all the hardware and software documentation back to England. This computer became the ICT 1903. It was scaled up and down. This product line was the most successful ever in England. Canada does have good engineers.The next computer I worked on was the IBM 360. It used chips. In a period of five years I worked on tube, discrete and chip based computers. Isn't technology great!.
The last time I went to the Ottawa Science museum an FP 6000 that I worked on was in its entrance. I wonder how many of us really understand the unique place this computer holds in the history of computing in Canada?
Submitted by: Tom Hobbs