Friday, September 25, 2026

Question: What room-sized machine, unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, was the world’s first general-purpose electronic computer?

Answer: ENIAC. Short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, ENIAC was built at Penn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, and unveiled on Feb. 14, 1946. Developed to calculate artillery trajectories during World War II, it was famously programmed by a team of six women mathematicians. Four of its original panels are still on display at Penn today.