ENIAC : the triumphs and tragedies of the world's first computer

For all his genius, John von Neumann was not, as he is generally credited, the true father of the modern computer. That honor belongs to the two men who built the first programmable computer, the lengendary ENIAC: John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. In ENIAC, two stories-of the three-year race to complete the computer, and of the three-decade struggle to take credit for it-are intertwined and fully revealed to general readers for the first time. Today's computers are fantastically complex machines, shaped by innovations dreamt up by hundreds of engineers and theorists over the last several decades. Does it even make sense, then, to ask who invented the computer? McCartney thinks so, and in ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, he's written a compelling answer to the question, crediting two relatively unsung Pennsylvanians with what is arguably the most significant invention of the century. McCartney's heroes are Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and as he makes clear, there are those who might question the choice. Nobody doubts the pair designed and built ENIAC, the world's first fully electronic computer and a watershed in the history of computing. But for years the importance of their contribution, made during World War II and sponsored by the U.S. Army, has been downplayed. The brilliant John von Neumann's subsequent theoretical papers on computer design have made him the traditional "father of modern computing." And Eckert and Mauchly later even lost the patent on their machine when it was claimed that another early experimenter, John Atanasoff, had given them all the ideas about ENIAC that mattered. But McCartney's meticulously researched narrative of Eckert and Mauchly's careers--covering the thrilling three years of ENIAC's construction and the frustrating decades of little recognition that followed--sets the record straight. He carefully weighs Atanasoff's claims and gives von Neumann the credit he earned for advancing computer science, but in the end he leaves no room for doubt: if anyone deserves to be remembered for inventing the computer, it's the two men whose tale he has told here so engagingly. --Julian Dibbell John Mauchly and Presper Eckert designed and built the first digital, electronic computer. The story of their three-year race to create the legendary ENIAC and their three-decade struggle to gain credit for it has never been told and is a compelling tale of brilliance and misfortune. Mauchly and Eckert met by chance in 1941 at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering. They soon developed a revolutionary vision: to use electricity as a means of computing - in other words, to make electricity "think." Ignored by their colleagues, in early 1943 they were fortuitously discovered and funded by the U.S. Army, itself in urgent need of a machine that could quickly calculate ballistic missile trajectories in wartime Europe and Africa. In the wake of their triumph, Mauchly and Eckert would be shadowed by personal tragedies and professional setbacks that are as absorbing as their invention is fascinating. They built the famous UNIVAC machine and formed the world's first computer company, only to be outflanked and outfinanced by IBM and other emerging competitors. They filed a patent on ENIAC and would spend the next twenty-five years defending their inventions against a host of claims. Based on original interviews with surviving participants and the first study of Mauchly's and Eckert's personal papers, ENIAC is a vital contribution to the history of technology. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Introduction: The Thinking Man's Game......Page 10 1. The Ancestors......Page 18 2. A Kid and a Dreamer......Page 37 3. Crunched by Numbers......Page 61 4. Getting Started......Page 71 5. Five Times One Thousand......Page 96 6. Whose Machine Was It, Anyway?......Page 118 7. Out on Their Own......Page 144 8. Whose Idea Was It, Anyway?......Page 184 Epilogue: So Much Has Been Taken Away......Page 224 Notes......Page 238 Bibliography......Page 252 Acknowledgments......Page 261 Index......Page 264 In early 1997, Garry Kasparov, the Russian grand master of chess, squared off against "Deep Blue," an International Business Machines Corporation computer built with circuits designed specifically for the kind of computations-the kind of "thinking"-that goes on during chess. Presents a history of the world's first programmable computer, ENIAC, and its creators, a team funded by the U.S. Army and led by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, and discusses their race to complete the computer and their struggle to take credit for their discovery. John Mauchly and Presper Eckert designed and built the first digital, electronic computer. This is the story of their three-year race to create the legendary ENIAC and their three-decade struggle to gain credit for it