The invention: The first commercially successful computer system.
The people behind the invention:
John Presper Eckert (1919-1995), an American electrical engineer John W. Mauchly (1907-1980), an American physicist John von Neumann (1903-1957), a Hungarian American
mathematician Howard Aiken (1900-1973), an American physicist George Stibitz (1904-1995), a scientist at Bell Labs
The Origins Of Computing
On March 31,1951, the U.S. Census Bureau accepted delivery of the first Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). This powerful electronic computer, far surpassing anything then available in technological features and capability, ushered in the first computer generation and pioneered the commercialization of what had previously been the domain of academia and the interest of the military. The fanfare that surrounded this historic occasion, however, masked the turbulence of the previous five years for the young upstart Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), which by this time was a wholly owned subsidiary of Remington Rand Corporation.
John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly met in the summer of 1941 at the University of Pennsylvania. A short time later, Mauchly, then a physics professor at Ursinus College, joined the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and embarked on a crusade to convince others of the feasibility of creating electronic digital computers. Up to this time, the only computers available were called “differential analyzers,” which were used to solve complex mathematical equations known as “differential equations.” These slow machines were good only for solving a relatively narrow range of mathematical problems.
Eckert and Mauchly landed a contract that eventually resulted in the development and construction of the world’s first operational general-purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). This computer, used eventually by the Army for the calculation of ballistics tables, was deficient in many obvious areas, but this was caused by economic rather than engineering constraints. One major deficiency was the lack of automatic program control; the ENIAC did not have stored program memory. This was addressed in the development of the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC), the successor to the ENIAC.
Fighting the Establishment
A symbiotic relationship had developed between Eckert and Mauchly that worked to their advantage on technical matters. They worked well with each other, and this contributed to their success in spite of external obstacles. They both were interested in the commercial applications of computers and envisioned uses for these machines far beyond the narrow applications required by the military.
This interest brought them into conflict with the administration at the Moore School of Engineering as well as with the noted mathematician John von Neumann, who “joined” the ENIAC/EDVAC development team in 1945. Von Neumann made significant contributions and added credibility to the Moore School group, which often had to fight against the conservative scientific establishment characterized by Howard Aiken at Harvard University and George Stibitz at Bell Labs. Philosophical differences between von Neumann and Eckert and Mauchly, as well as patent issue disputes with the Moore School administration, eventually caused the resignation of Eckert and Mauchly on March 31, 1946.
Eckert and Mauchly, along with some of their engineering colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, formed the Electronic Control Company and proceeded to interest potential customers (including the Census Bureau) in an “EDVAC-type” machine. On May 24,1947, the EDVAC-type machine became the UNIVAC. This new computer would overcome the shortcomings of the ENIAC and the EDVAC (which was eventually completed by the Moore School in 1951). It would be a stored-program computer and would allow input to and output from the computer via magnetic tape. The prior method of input/output used punched paper cards that were extremely slow compared to the speed at which data in the computer could be processed.
A series of poor business decisions and other unfortunate circumstances forced the newly renamed Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation to look for a buyer. They found one in Remington Rand in 1950. Remington Rand built tabulating equipment and was a competitor of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). IBM was approached about buying EMCC, but the negotiations fell apart. EMCC became a division of Remington Rand and had access to the resources necessary to finish the UNIVAC.
Consequences
Eckert and Mauchly made a significant contribution to the advent of the computer age with the introduction of the UNIVAC I. The words “computer” and “UNIVAC” entered the popular vocabulary as synonyms. The efforts of these two visionaries were rewarded quickly as contracts started to pour in, taking IBM by surprise and propelling the inventors into the national spotlight.
This spotlight shone brightest, perhaps, on the eve of the national presidential election of 1952, which pitted war hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower against statesman Adlai Stevenson. At the suggestion of Remington Rand, CBS was invited to use UNIVAC to predict the outcome of the election. Millions of television viewers watched as CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite “asked” UNIVAC for its predictions. A program had been written to analyze the results of thousands of voting districts in the elections of 1944 and 1948. Based on only 7 percent of the votes coming in, UNIVAC had Eisenhower winning by a landslide, in contrast with all the prior human forecasts of a close election. Surprised by this answer and not willing to suffer the embarrassment of being wrong, the programmers quickly directed the program to provide an answer that was closer to the perceived situation. The outcome of the election, however, matched UNIVAC’s original answer. This prompted CBS commentator Edward R. Murrow’s famous quote, “The trouble with machines is people.”
The development of the UNIVAC I produced many technical innovations. Primary among these is the use of magnetic tape for input and output. All machines that preceded the UNIVAC (with one exception) used either paper tape or cards for input and cards for output. These methods were very slow and created a bottleneck of information. The great advantage of magnetic tape was the ability to store the equivalent of thousands of cards of data on one 30-centimeter reel of tape. Another advantage was its speed.
See also Apple II computer; BINAC computer; Colossus computer; ENIAC computer; IBM Model 1401 computer; Personal computer; Supercomputer.
