Many people know Philadelphia is home to the world’s first all-electronic, programmable computer; the ENIAC — for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer — was developed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946. What you may not know: That famous number cruncher was just the beginning for computer developments in Philadelphia.
“Philly is definitely the birthplace of electronic computing,” Jim Scherrer told Technical.ly. He’s the founder of the Compuseum, a nonprofit focused on computer history and education. “So the ENIAC ushered in this dawn of the computer age, and we haven’t looked back.”
To showcase the importance of the region in computer history, Scherrer and Compuseum created a map marking relevant landmarks around Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Along with the ENIAC, some of the locations and milestones highlighted on the map include:
- Eckert and Mauchly Computer Corporation — the world’s first computer company (Philadelphia)
- Women Pioneers in Computing, the ENIAC 6, Philadelphia, First "programmers"
- 6502 Chip — the first computer chip in the Apple Computer line (Valley Forge)
- Philco Transac — the fastest transistorized computer (Lansdale)
- Illiac IV — biggest and most expensive computer ever made (Paoli)
- Selectron — first memory device for computers (Lancaster)
- Commodore — top selling personal computer of all time (West Chester)
- Philco SB Transistor — first transistor into a computer (Lansdale)
- Unisys — merger of two computer companies, took over the Univac computer (Blue Bell)
- "Barcode" invented by two Drexel University Students, Patented October 1952 https://bar-code.com/upc/bar-code-history/
- Founding father of personal bloggers, Justin Hall, started his Web site, Links.net, in 1994 when a Swarthmore student.
- 401 N. Broad St. — one of the first internet hubs (Philadelphia)
- Swarthmore College student Dan Kohn — first online credit card transaction, (Swarthmore)
- SunGard Backup — largest data backup and storage repository (Wayne)
Compuseum has been working on the map with input from local leaders in the history of computing and debuted it on World Computer Day in February 2024.
