ENIAC

Hello. My name is ENIAC, and I am a giant thinking machine. I am not small like the computers you see today. I was as big as a whole room. Imagine a room full of blinking lights, that was me. All my thousands of lights would go blink, blink, blink as I thought very hard. I was born in a special place a long, long time ago, in a year called 1946. I was so excited to wake up and start thinking. I am happy to tell you my story.

My job was to be a super-fast thinker. I solved very big number problems quicker than any person could. Two smart men named John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert had the big idea to create me. But my very first friends were six smart women who were my programmers. They were the ones who told my brain what to do. They would move my wires and plug them into new spots, like putting together a giant puzzle. This helped me think about the right problems. I was built to help solve very important problems for people during a time called World War II. I felt very proud that I could help.

I used to fill up a great big room, but now, my ideas are inside tiny little things. Do you have a computer at home, or a tablet, or a phone. I am like their great-great-grandparent. My big body and blinking brain were one of the first big steps toward making the small computers we have now. I am so happy that my thinking helped start a world where everyone can use their own thinking machines to learn, play games, and talk to family far away. My big ideas are still helping you today.