ENIAC

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/eniac

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. How heavy is ENIAC?Approximately 30 tons (60,000 pounds)
2. What is the location of construction?Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
3. What is the year of completion?1945
4. What was ENIAC and how big was it?ENIAC was a giant electronic computer built in 1945. It filled a room the size of a classroom, was about 8 feet tall, and weighed around 30 tons.
5. How did people program ENIAC?To program ENIAC, engineers rewired plugboards and flipped thousands of switches. The setup could take days for a single problem.

Stored-Program Computer: A computer architecture where program instructions are stored in the same memory as data, allowing for dynamic program changes.
Differential Equations: Mathematical equations that relate a function with its derivatives, often used to model physical phenomena.
Vacuum Tube: An electronic component that controls the flow of electrons in a vacuum, crucial for early electronic computing devices.
General-Purpose Electronic Digital Computer: A computer designed to perform a wide range of computational tasks using digital signals, rather than being limited to a single function.