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The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC)
The ENIAC was a secret WWII project that was proposed by John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert jr. in 1942. They built it from 1943 to 1945. It was then introduced to the public on February 15, 1946. It was 50 feet long, weighed 30 tons, and had 18,000 tubes connected to it. Even though it was made, it didn't come out until the war ended and survived until it finally shut down in 1955 due to a lightning strike. http://www.ushistory.org/oddities/eniac.htm -
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The History of Computers
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The Universal Automatic Computer I (UNIVAC I)
The UNIVAC was released on June 1, 1951 by John Presper Eckert jr. and John Mauchly. It would cease production in 1958, resulting in that only 46 models were made. The UNIVAC was able to handle both numbers and alphabetic characters equally the same. It was unique in that it was able to separate the complex problems of input and output from the computation facility. http://www.thocp.net/hardware/univac.htm -
Kenbak-1
It was invented by John Blakenbaker of the Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was later released to the public in September of 1970 selling only 40 units, costing $750.00 each. The computer's memory had only just 256 bytes and was able to perform several hundred instructions per second. Production of the Kenbak-1 however ended in 1973, due to Kenbak Corporation being taken over by CTI Education Products Inc. http://www.kenbak-1.net/ -
The Apple I
The Apple I was developed by Steve Jobbs and Steve Wozniak in Wozniak's bedroom. They took it to the Homebrew Computer Club to show it to the members. The Apple I was released on April 1, 1976, and sold for $666.66. It had an MOS Technology processor running at 1.023 and also came with a 4k RAM. It was also able to support up to 40 characters per line, and at 24 lines. It sold until it was replaced by the much more practical and user friendly Apple II. http://oldcomputers.net/applei.html -
Apple LISA (Local Integrated Software Architecture)
The Apple Lisa was released o January 1, 1983, and cost $9, 995. It sold 100,000 units in just 2 years. It is the first commercial computer to have a graphical user interface with 720 x 364 graphics. The Apple Lisa was a major advancement in user-friendly computer systems, but was also a very unpopular system due to its high price. http://oldcomputers.net/lisa.html -
The Macintosh Portable
It was a portable Macintosh that had the same features as the original mac and was the first to use surface mount technology. It cost $6,500 for the standard edition and $7,500 for the mac and hard drive. It actually weighed 16-17 pounds. It was later upgraded in 1991 with a backlit screen, less-expensive RAM, and was also less expensive. http://oldcomputers.net/macportable.html -
MacBook Air
Apple took a different approach with the MacBook Air and decided to make it weigh lighter than their previous computers. It weighed 2.2 pounds lighter than the original Mac and had a 5 hour battery life. They made it thin so that it could have a 13.3" LED backlit display, a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, and a fully-sized keyboard. It was also missing some features that were on previous models, such as no built-in ethernet port. http://lowendmac.com/2008/13-macbook-air-late-2008/
