What does ENIAC stand for?

Electric Network Information Analysis Center

Early Numeric Input and Calculation

Alan Turing and John von Neumann

ENIAC Quiz: The First General-Purpose Electronic Computer

Six women learned to program a room-sized machine by plugging cables and setting switches, and this ENIAC quiz tells the story of the computer they ran. Play 10 interactive questions on the Moore School, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, artillery firing tables, the 1946 unveiling, vacuum tubes, plugboard programming, the ENIAC programmers, its speed and its later scientific work.

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🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Name
What does ENIAC stand for?
Where
Where was ENIAC built?
Designers
Who led its design?
Purpose
What was ENIAC originally funded to calculate?
Unveiled
When was ENIAC publicly unveiled?
Tubes
Roughly how many vacuum tubes did it contain?
Size
Roughly how much did ENIAC weigh?
Programming
How was ENIAC programmed at first?
Women
Who were the first ENIAC programmers?
Retired
When was ENIAC shut down?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: What does ENIAC stand for?
Answer: Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
It was built during World War II.
Q2: Where was ENIAC built?
Answer: The University of Pennsylvania
At the Moore School of Electrical Engineering.
Q3: Who led its design?
Answer: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
They later founded a computer company.
Q4: What was ENIAC originally funded to calculate?
Answer: Artillery firing tables
The US Army paid for it.
Q5: When was ENIAC publicly unveiled?
Answer: February 1946
Newspapers called it a giant brain.
Q6: Roughly how many vacuum tubes did it contain?
Answer: About 18,000
Tubes often burned out.
Q7: Roughly how much did ENIAC weigh?
Answer: About 30 tons
It filled a large room.
Q8: How was ENIAC programmed at first?
Answer: By plugging cables and setting switches
Changing programs took days.
Q9: Who were the first ENIAC programmers?
Answer: Six women mathematicians
Their work was overlooked for decades.
Q10: When was ENIAC shut down?
Answer: 1955
It ran calculations for about a decade.

Eniac Quiz – The First General-Purpose Electronic Computer

ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was built at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The US Army funded it to calculate artillery firing tables during World War II.

Unveiled in February 1946, it contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighed about 30 tons and filled a large room. It could perform about 5,000 additions per second and is often called the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.

ENIAC was programmed by plugging cables and setting switches. Its first programmers were six women: Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman. It ran until 1955.

What This Quiz Teaches

Tech history fans will enjoy these questions.

Who built ENIAC
Why it was funded
How big it was
How it was programmed
Who programmed it

Did You Know?

ENIAC was used for early hydrogen bomb calculations.
Mauchly and Eckert later built UNIVAC.
Parts of ENIAC are displayed in museums.
A 1973 court ruling questioned its patent.
Modern phones are millions of times faster.