Episodes

5 episodes in this season

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Giant Brains

57 min

Inventing the Future

58 min

The Paperback Computer

57 min

The Thinking Machine

58 min

The Passing of Remoteness

58 min

The Dream Machine

TV Series

199157m

Documentary

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Giant Brains

Season 1 · Episode 1 · Nov 17, 1991

Englishman Charles Babbage conceived the basic idea of a computer about 150 years ago, as a machine that would eliminate error and relieve humans of the tedium of calculation. But it was not until the Second World War that the race to build the first computer began. In 1946, the Americans unveiled the ENIAC - it filled a large room, cost the equivalent of $3 million to build and had less power than a modern pocket calculator. Interviews: Paul Ceruzzi (computer historian), Doron Swade (London Science Museum), Konrad Zuse (inventor of the first functional computer and high-level programming language, d.1995), Kay Mauchly Antonelli (human computer in WWII and ENIAC programmer, d.2006), Herman Goldstine (ENIAC developer, d.2004), J. Presper Eckert (co-inventor of ENIAC, d.1995), Maurice Wilkes (inventor of EDSAC), Donald Michie (Codebreaker at Bletchley Park)

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The Dream Machine

TV Series

199157m

Documentary

Now playing

Giant Brains

Season 1 · Episode 1 · Nov 17, 1991

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