Herman Goldstine, ENIAC Developer, Dies at Age 90

CodeFixer writes "Herman Goldstine, who as a mathematician working at the Ballistic Research Lab convinced the US Army to fund the development of the ENIAC and EDVAC, has died at the age of 90. His obituary can be found at the New York Times and descriptions of his involvement in the development of the ENIAC can be found at the Army Research Laboratory."

Comments

Idea from English?

[MisanthropicProgram]

I'm trying to remember where I saw the article - maybe it was here, but the English had an electronic computer for breaking the Enigma codes in WWII before we Yanks had one.
I wonder if Goldstine heard about the British one and knew that we needed one too?

Re:wow

[dave1791]

You still can. It is called basic research. Like the Eniac, many things being done right now will seem to have minor signifigance for a long time, then they become VERY important. The guys playing around with quantum mechanics in the 1920's changed the world, but not right away. Kary Mullis' work in the early 80's made all modern DNA tools possible and enabled something whose effect on society is still unknown.

Re:Goldstine was project manager not designer

[Mignon]

he was really more of a project manager

At this point, you could say that about Linus Torvalds, too. After 8 years as a programmer, I'm more impressed by people who can manage programmers than by programmers.

Re:Goldstine was project manager not designer

[qtp]

Atanassoff's machine was not programable, could only solve one function at a time, had to have the results of the first function fed back to the machine in order to solve a second function, and had no technologies in common with ENIAC.

Sudents from Iowa can only graduate in CS if they reject all truth in order to perpetuate a lie that the first computer was invented in thier home state.