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Interview with One of ENIACs Inventors

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the dave-you-like-your-eniac-better-than-me-don't-you dept.

deeptrace writes "On the 60th anniversary of the ENIAC an old family friend of 'Pres' Eckert transcribed some interviews recorded before his death. Very interesting reading. They dispel a few myths, such as the lights didn't really dim when they turned it on, and the military officers did not salute ENIAC."

11 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Re:ARRRR, MATEY! by Voltageaav · · Score: 4, Informative

    RTFA, "While there are controversies about who invented what, there is universal agreement that the ENIAC was the watershed project that showed electronic computing was possible."

    --
    Someone save me from this sanity.
  2. Re:ARRRR, MATEY! by Dzimas · · Score: 5, Informative
    In the interview, Eckert seems to imply that Atanasoff wasn't really worthy of receiving a patent because he had little more than test-bench ideas, wheras Mauchly and Eckert took their concepts and produced a machine that did cutting-edge scientific work for a decade. In a way, this points out many of the flaws with modern technology patents -- RIM would not be in the situation it is currently facing if the NTP lawyers were required to produce a working prototype of a wireless email system.

    The reason that everyone lauds ENIAC is that it was the first *meaningful* public application of a "pluggable/programmable" computer. Of course, a few folks at Bletchley Park knew that Tommy Flowers had built a tube-based computer in 1943-1944 to crack the German Lorenz codes. The British went on to build ten of them. And, incidentally, it used a parallel architecture.

  3. Ahh, maybe not by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 2, Informative
    >ENIAC was the watershed project that showed electronic computing was possible."

    Um, guess it depends on what you mean by "computing".

    Years before the ENIAC was running, IBM was SELLING big ugly boxes that could add, subtract, and multiply, all electronically:

    http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_194 3.html

    Fenynman used these at Los Alamos in 1944 to compute critical massses of Plutonium.

    And these were programmable, to an extent, with plugboards, which incidentally was more flexible that the ENIAC arrangment of plugs and cables. You could swap plugboards in 5 seconds; reconfiguring ENIAC for a new program could take many many hours.

    Eventually ENIAC was re-architected to take instructions from a huge bank of switches, before that it was program by plug.

  4. Re:Bletchley Park by ch-chuck · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, another contender for the 1st crown is the Konrad Zuse Z3, recognition being largely obscured by fact of being on the losing side of the war.

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  5. Re:Bletchley Park by Vanders · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Bombes wern't computers. The Colosus were. You should also note that the physical design of the machine doesn't matter all that much; all pre-tube machines (Most from that era) were electro-mechanical devices because they used relays as switching units.

    --
    Syllable : It's an Operating System
  6. Re:American History Revision by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Manchester `Baby' was officially the `Small scale experimental computer', not the Mark 1. The Mark 1 was the second computer built at Manchester. It was based on the `Baby', but was a lot more sophisticated - the Mk 1 had a magnetic drum store, for example. Not file store, but for virtual memory. Yep, the first practical programmable electronic digital computer had something like virtual memory. More here: http://www.computer50.org/

  7. Who invented the first computer? by D4C5CE · · Score: 2, Informative
    Zuse, during the late 1930s, could not know of parallel developments occurring in the English-speaking parts of the world (then at war), which he did "beat" by a couple of years, and reportly learned of Babbage only at the patent office, after "re-inventing" many of the 19th-century concepts himself.

    Babbage+Lovelace probably come closest to being the inventors of IT, and were recognised as such in particular by Turing, but they never saw the actual machine running in their lifetimes. At any rate, there are many more candidates, contributors and contenders for this honor than one usually learns at school or from the news media...

    Here is one very interesting article by an author not to be confused with the interviewer (as they are bearing almost the same last name): Randell, From Analytical Engine to Electronic Digital Computer, http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/research/pubs/articles/pap ers/398.pdf

  8. did you ever hear of Konrad Zuse? by lophophore · · Score: 4, Informative

    You need to look here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuse

    Before you make your rash statements about the Colossus being first.

    --
    there are 3 kinds of people:
    * those who can count
    * those who can't
  9. Re:First guy dumped for being a geek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Summer 2004? Please if the guy is alive go revisit him and tape (audio only or audio-visual) him telling his story and if possible find someone to back it up (could be hard). If he's passed away perhaps he's told the story to friends/kids/others.

    I know it's trivia but it's still valuable and an excellent story. If you do some backgrounding and perhaps find more information it might write up as a good story (but please don't exaggerate/misuse it). I'm sure you could get some money out of it doing the following:
    - write it up as a nice interesting piece/humerous anecdote for local media, for tech rags, perhaps even various historically minded publishings. Even Scientific American somethimes prints nostaligic tidbits of obscure trivia (one person working for them even made it into a television career). Earn $$$ here
    - later on release the source material (tape of the interview etc. under a CC of your choice or similar (no $$$ here)

    Keep history alive, the small funny stories are more important than people realize. They are more effective at transcending time than most other stuff.

    Depending on how much effort and time you spend on gathering material (like the interview) you could even make into a very short television piece or documentary (the micro kind that's sometimes used as filler) and/or a short for the independent crowd. Some opportunities for $$$ here.

    You don't have to do it all by yourself, shout out right here on Slashdot and I'm sure people living fairly close to you/Philly would volunteer F/OSS style.

  10. Re:Important concepts introduced by ENIAC? by D4C5CE · · Score: 3, Informative

    19th century engineering wasn't really up to building the Analytical Engine. Babbage famously said, late in his life, that he would gladly give up the rest of his time if he could spend just three days 500 years in the future. Of course a man who was really out of this time was Leonardo DaVinci, who sketched a 13 digit cogwheel digital adder in the 15th century.

    Its price and proportions would have been staggering, but much like by the IBM-sponsored collection of Leonardo's machines at Clos Luce, the myth that it wouldn't have been feasible has now actually been dispelled for the case of Babbage as well by building a working engine from the original designs to the tolerances of their time - these are the relevant excerpts from the project documentation:

    The most widely accepted reason for this failure is that Victorian mechanical engineering were not sufficiently developed to produce parts with sufficient precision.
    (...)
    By previous standards these engines were monumental in conception, size and complexity.
    (...)
    Babbage failed to complete the construction of any of his engines. His failures were not failures of principle but of practical accomplishment. However, the legend of his work if not its technical detail remained part of the folklore amongst those who pursued the ideal of automated calculation after his death.
    (...)
    The advantage of using the method of differences is that it eliminates the need for multiplication and division in the calculation of a particular class of mathematical functions called polynomials. The Difference Engine only used addition which is easier to mechanise than multiplication and division.

    Manufacturing parts for his engines stretched the standards of engineering practice of the time. The intricate shapes required special jigs and tools and the Engines' mechanisms demanded hundreds of near-identical precision parts. Babbage conceived his Engine designs at a time when production techniques were in transition between craft traditions and mass-production and there was not yet the means of producing repeated parts automatically.
    (...)
    Babbage conducted an extensive survey of manufacturing techniques and practice by visiting manufactures and craft workshops in England and on the Continent. He concluded that the precision and intricacy required for the construction of his Engine were beyond the capabilities of the technology of the day. This study, conducted during the 1820s, formed the basis of his influential book entitled On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, published in 1832.
    (...)
    Babbage benefited from substantial government funding - £17,500. But work on the Engine was halted in 1833 when Clement downed tools following an unresolved dispute over compensation for moving his workshop four miles to new premises near Babbage's house.
    (...)
    The reasons for his failure continue to exercise historians. Factors cited include Babbage's allegedly difficult personality, unconvincing progress, disputes with his engineer, Joseph Clement, political instability and the eventual withdrawal of government funding, though the view most often repeated in histories of computing is that Babbage's failure was due to limitations in Victorian machine tool technology.

    To explore the thesis that the limitation of Victorian engineering was a contributory factor in Babbage's failure to complete any of his machines the Science Museum set about constructing Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 in 1985. Before the engine could be constructed the original design drawings were redrawn and expanded to provide the engineering detail needed for modern manufacture.
    (...)
    Modern techniques were used in the manufacture of repeat parts but care was taken to restrict limits of precisi

  11. Konrad Zuse's Z3 was the first! by gururise · · Score: 3, Informative
    Its time to stop the myth of Eniac being the first electronic programmmable computer. It is well established and generally accepted in the scientific and historic community that Konrad Zuse (from Germany) developed the worlds first electronic programmable computer, the Z3 in 1941 in Germany.

    In 1998, it was even proven that his Z3 computer was Turing Complete.

    Another good link is here