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ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

2000; AIP Publishing; Volume: 53; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1063/1.1292487

1945-0699

Scott McCartney, J. Ross Macdonald, Harvey G. Cragon,

History of Computing Technologies

From the Publisher: For all his genius, John Von Neumann is not, as he is often credited, the true father of the modern computer. That honor belongs to two men, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who 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. As Scott McCartney chronicles in memorable detail, the team they led constructed a behemoth that occupied 1,800 square feet and weighed 30 tons. They overcame problems as banal as finding wire that rats wouldn't eat and as complex as linking the 18,000 vacuum tubes that powered their machine. Today ENIACs entire capacity would sit on an integrated circuit the size of a lapel pin, yet without ENIAC, such technological advancements might not have occurred. 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. Even in today's rough-and-tumble, high-tech world, it remains a stunning cautionary tale. Scott McCartney is a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Defying the Gods: Inside the New Frontiers of Organ Transplants and coauthor of Trinity's Children: Living Along America's Nuclear Highway. He lives in Dallas, Texas.