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Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)
Last Updated: June 13, 2018
Definition - What does Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) mean?
The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) was one of the earliest large mainframe computers to be built in the 1940s. It was the first mainframe computer that represented binary systems rather than decimal systems.
Techopedia explains Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)
EDVAC was designed in 1944 and built in the 1940s, before being installed in the U.S. Army’s Ballistics Research Laboratory in Maryland in August of 1940.
As a binary serial computer, EDVAC processed mathematical operations with a serial memory capacity of roughly 5.5 kB. EDVAC used magnetic tape as a data media and could run over 20 hours a day.
EDVAC was replaced in 1961 by the Ballistic Research Laboratories Electronic Scientific Computer (BRLESC) which had a larger memory and faster response times.
