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ENIAC Story on NPR
Anonymous PIG writes "On August 19, NPR's Morning Edition aired a story about the ENIAC, the world's first computer, and it's forgotten inventors. It is archived on this page and you can listen to it directly at this link. " The story of how the creators were really screwed on the whole deal is interesting-definitely worth the download time.Update: 08/21 03:30 by H : I sit duly corrected-the first computer was not ENIAC. Arguably, it was Colossus, a British construction in 1943.Update: 08/21 02:18 by H : Alright, alright-stop e-mailing me with earlier computers *grin*. Zuse, Babbage's Engine. I'm saying the abacus, and leaving it at that.
Fun facts? Sad facts if you ask me...
I think "Fun facts" was meant to be ironic...
It says the computer community is missing some brilliant minds because it breeds a hostile environment for anyone who's not a white heterosexual male.
At that time, there wasn't a "computer community" as there is today; rather, there was a mathematical community that was working on computing machinery. Regardless, Alan Turing's peers, those who worked with him, cared little about his personal life. It was the the British government, and by extension British society at large, that persecuted him, not the "computer community." Keep in mind also that Turing was about as Anglo as they come, and was male, so I fail to see what his feelings have to do with exclusion of non-whites or non-males. Non-heteros I'd grant, but the fledgling computer community of post-WWII is not the computer community of today. Comparisons, while interesting, are largely fruitless.
The community needs to encourage more gender and racial parity,
This I'll grant. I had a physics (not computer science, but a similar mindset) professor in college who failed a female student because he felt that females had no place in physics.
and facts like these won't be novelties.
In order for this fact to become uninteresting, suicides by brilliant pioneering white male homosexual computer scientist would have to become common. I would hope that the computer community will always remember a novel tragedy that cost it one of its most brilliant theoreticians.
Bzzzt. Try SRI (Stanford Research Institute) by Doug Englebart and his team. Yes, several of them went on to Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) where the mouse was put to use on the Alto, Star, and other groundbreaking machines.
Check out:
Doug Englebart's Unfinished Revolution at http://unrev.stanford.edu
Bzzzt. Actually, early joysticks were even simpler -- an array of four switches activated by the single, central stick. I believe first developed by the military well before Woz/Jobs were even born.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
I'm glad NPR aired this piece. ENIAC was quite and accomplishment for it's time, and more people need to know about it. (Hell, there's even a link on my page to info about it.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
They were unlucky in running their own business, so they sold the patent to Rand Corp., who tried to use it to extort money from every other computing device manufacurer (this was in the NPR interview, not personal opinion).
This forced a federal judge to revoke the patent. It was either that, or give a monopoly to Rand in the computer industry.
I think the only way they really got screwed, was that their names aren't well known as the originators of Eniac, and this is what the NPR article brought out. But every great computer innovation seems to have gone this way.
Remember the names of the guy's that wrote the first spreadsheet? How about the guy(s) that invented the transistor. Or the mouse, or the joystick, or any one of thousands of VERY important inventions or innovations. You may know some of them, but these people are mostly unknown to the masses.
This is when you start really respecting RMS and FSF. To put out the volume of really important software, KNOWING that there would be next to 0% return (sometimes not even real credit given) has to be worth something.
jf
Of course, everyone ought to take the time to learn a bit about their history at the Vintage Computer Festival. While you're at it, check out some of the great computer history sites like Blinkenlights, the Home Computer Museum, and Jim Willing's Computer Garage. And don't forget the Computer History Association of California.
Of course, you should also check out my classic computer collection as well (plug, plug).
Hmmm... All the HTML seems to be getting stripped, for some reason, so here are all the URL's again just in case:
Vintage Computer Festival
http://www.vintage.org/
Blinkenlights Archeological Institute
http://www.blinkenlights.com/
Home Computer Museum
http://www.homecomputermuseum.com/
Jim Willing's Computer Garage
http://www.computergarage.com/
Computer History Association of California
http://www.chac.org/
Uncle Roger's Classic Computers
http://www.sinasohn.com/clascomp/
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
For many years, ENIAC was the first electronic, non-classified computer. It was solidly beat out by Turing & VonNeumann's COLOSSUS. Both ENIAC and COLOSSUS were beat out by electromechanical computers, like Conrad Zuse's Z3 (1941) and Harvard's Mark1 (1944).
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Open mind, insert foot.
He was depressed because the British government decided to do the "favor" of "curing" him of his homosexuality. Namely they put him on lotsa hormones and psychoactive chemicals intended (by some odd bit of "logic") to make him desire women instead of men. Instead, they just caused much dysphoria, which led to depression, which led to suicide.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.