Geek Day (14/02)

February 14 — is unofficial, but widely celebrated in the professional world as Geek Day. On February 14, 1946, the first actually working electronic computer ENIAC I (Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator) was demonstrated to the scientific world and everyone interested.

Interestingly, work on the development of the first computer was sponsored by the American army, which needed the computer for military calculations, planning and programming. ENIAC I operated for 23 hours and 45 minutes on October 2, 1955, and was then dismantled.

Of course, there were earlier computers, but these are all prototypes and experimental options. For that matter, the first computer was Babbage's analytical machine... But ENIAC was the first computer that actually worked on practical problems. By the way, it was from ENIAC that modern computers inherited the binary number system.

The ENIAC was designed to meet one of the major and necessary challenges of the time: to calculate the Army's ballistic tables. The Army had departments dedicated to calculating ballistic tables for the needs of artillery and aviation. People worked in these departments as Army Calculator.

Naturally, the power and productivity of these « computing resources» of the army was not enough. Therefore, cybernetics at the beginning of 1943 began developing the concept of a new computing device — of the ENIAC computer.

That is why February 14 is celebrated as — Geek Day. And in Russia there is also an official professional holiday for workers in this industry — Programmer's Day.



Postcard «February 14 — Geek Day»

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