What Happened on October 9th
October 9, 1947
BINAC Computer to Be Built
A contract was signed to develop the BINAC. The "BINary Automatic Computer" was the only computer ever built by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Co., founded by ENIAC pioneers J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. The company became a division of Remington Rand Corp. before completing its next project, the UNIVAC.
The first electronic digital computer with a stored-program capability to be completed in the United States, the BINAC had a capacity of 512 words. At a price of $278,000, the BINAC improved on the ENIAC primarily by improving speed and power with only 700 vacuum tubes instead of 18,000.