How powerful was the first computer?

In today’s world, it’s hard to imagine life without computers. We use them for everything from communication and entertainment to work and school. But it wasn’t always this way. The first computers were bulky machines that filled entire rooms. They were slow and had very limited storage capacity. So how did we get from there to the sleek laptops and smartphones that we use today? It all started with a computer called the ENIAC. Developed in the 1940s, the ENIAC was initially designed to help calculate artillery firing tables for the US Army. But this machine was soon recognized for its potential as a general-purpose computer. While the ENIAC could only perform about 5,000 calculations per second, it laid the foundation for the modern computers that we use today. So the next time you pull out your smartphone to check your email or play a game, take a moment to think about the incredible journey that computing has taken in just a few short decades.

For comparison, the average smartphone can now perform about 35,000,000 calculations per second. So you could say that our smartphones are approximately 700,000,000 times more powerful than the ENIAC!

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