After the Second World War, the public opinion was that electronic computers had no real use or future. The two inventors of the ENIAC computer, John Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, were convinced that these calculators had a wider and universal application, namely for economic and administrative tasks. The plan was to create a versatile calculator. However, it took until 1951 for the first UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) to be completed. In the meantime, the two inventors built the BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer), a mainframe computer for the Northrop aircraft company in California. According to some sources, however, the machine did not work very well. The first customer for the UNIVAC I was the U.S. Census. The order was for $300,000. The computer consisted of 5200 vacuum tubes, 18000 crystal diodes and weighed around 13 tons. The UNIVAC also had a technical revolution on board. Instead of punched cards, magnetic tapes were used for the first time to store input/output data and intermediate storage. This immediately became the standard for the coming computers of the time. In order to still be able to use the old punched cards, a converter from punched cards to magnetic tapes and vice versa was also supplied. In addition, a copier for the magnetic tapes was included as well as a high speed printer (for the time). This allowed data to be retrieved and processed by spooling back and forth. Thus, computers were no longer just computing devices, but information processing systems. For a few years, the UNIVAC was synonymous with the term computer. An important moment in which the computer got a lot of attention was in 1952 for the presidential election. Since a neck-and-neck race was expected between the two contenders, it was decided to use a projection with the new UNIVAC to inform voters about the outcome of the election. The attention that UNIVAC received in the process was tremendous. Previously, UNIVAC was dismissed as a pointless, stupid calculator. That UNIVAC was proven right at the end of the count silenced all critics. In one fell swoop, the computer had entered the mainstream and since then it has been impossible to imagine life without it. A total of 46 were built.
