(ENIAC) mouse wire test

Apr 27, 2006 8 Replies
O

Six decades after ENIAC, I'm sure we have different types of wiring insulation. A co-worker mentioned that mice chewed through the insulation for his air conditioner wires (in the crawl space under his house).



That leads me to ask... what types of today's wiring insulation are most mouse-resistant?



Original ENIAC mouse test (ca. 1945):

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"Randall: What's the zaniest thing you did while developing ENIAC?



Eckert: The mouse cage was pretty funny. We knew mice would eat the insulation off the wires, so we get samples of all the wires that were available and put them in a cage with a bunch of mice to see which insulation they did not like. We only used wire that passed the mouse test."



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L

Was this machine moved to the University of Illinois (Urbanna) sometime around 1965? I remember seeing it there. Or was that something else? Rumors had it that it was moved from Berkley due to 'political unrest'.

Luhan Monat (luhanxmonat-at-yahoo^dot^com)

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"Reality: what a concept!"

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J

IIRC, the original ENIAC wound up in the Smithsonian.

John

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R

The field service department at a company where I used to work got a field return once because the floppy drive on a ruggedized PC was not working. When the case was opened, a mouse nest complete with dead baby mice was discoverd jamming the floppy mechanism. Apparently the user had left the floppy access door open and Momma mouse had crawled in.

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K

Urbana ^^^^^^^

Eniac was a University of Pennsylvania project. Illiac was UofI.

The Illiac IV was "moved" to (more like "re-sited at") Moffett field in Silly valley because of campus unrest and resultant security worries.

Keith
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J

Nope. http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:oeJcm7VwaDwJ:

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*-School-of-Engineering-and-Applied-Science+represent-*-1/10th-of-its-original-size+four-of-the-original-40-panels+zz-zz+University-of-Pennsylvania

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K

How about:

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Keith
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F

a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Nowadays, most mouses are wireless.

Thanks, Fred.
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M

Sure, after real mice chew off their cords. ;-) I have about 100 of them here, and only one or two are wireless.

Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85. Michael A. Terrell Central Florida
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