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ENIAC, the forgotten story
One of the most amazing things about their very overdue story is that most of us have never heard of either of them.
ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of The World's First Computer author Scott McCartney of the Wall Street Journal pages 262 publisher Walker rating 8/10 reviewer Jon Katz ISBN summary The forgotten men who built the world's first computerQuiz:
Who invented the telephone?
The electric light bulb?
Launched the first manned flight?
We all know, of course. We've been schooled from the age of five to know. The creators of some of the greatest American technology are legends, household words, patriotic icons and shamans, their homes and labs turned into historic landmarks and museums.
But who built the first electronic computer?
A group of sixth-grade New Jersey students, asked that question earlier this year, divided their responses between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. A nine-year-old Virginia student guessed, "Radio Shack."
The fact that most people - even on a website like this - have no idea of the answer is why Scott McCartney's "ENIAC: " "the Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer" is such a smart and timely book. Talk about prophets without honor.
Computing hit like the Big Bang. The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates the amount of commerce conducted over the World Wide Web will top $1 trillion by 2003. Yet the Net's history is murky. The people who profit from modern computers are well known, but the people who actually developed them are forgotten.
Last week, as the Internet celebrated its 30th birthday, a scientist present at the UCLA lab (the first node of ARPAnet was installed at the UCLA Network Measurement Center, where a research group connected the IMP to their Sigma 7) where it was partially created told a reporter that nobody even bothered to take a picture.
Scott McCartney, a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, decided to remedy that sad reality. His book tells the virtually unknown story of two scientists, the late John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, and their tenacious three-year struggle to build the legendary ENIAC in a secret workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Mauchly and Eckert are rarely written about in computer anthologies and histories, not even mentioned in Stephen Segaller's otherwise thorough "Nerds 2.0.l, A Brief History Of The Internet" published last year. A plaque at the University of Pennsylvania commemorates the spot where ENIAC was put together, but doesn't even list the names of its inventors.
Mauchly and Eckert were obsessed with the idea of using electricity to make computing machines "think." Ridiculed and ignored by their colleagues, they found unlikely benefactors in the U.S. Army, desperate to find some way to calculate artillery shell trajectories as the Allies were getting chopped to bits attacking entrenched German positions in Italy and World War II.
Despite the fact we more or less know how it turns out, "ENIAC" is a scientific thriller, with McCartney skillfully and knowledgeably tracing the assembling of this unprecedented machine, with its countless vacuum tubes, cables and gears.
Although ENIAC was commissioned at the beginning of the War, Mauchly and Eckert didn't finish it until the fall of 1945, as peace descended. It had taken 200,000 man-hours of work and cost $486,804.22. What the Army got for its money was a thirty-ton monster that filled 1,800 square feet - the size of a three-bedroom apartment in many cities. What the rest of us got was modern computing, the Net and the World Wide Web.
ENIAC had forty different units, including twenty accumulators, arranged in the shape of a U, all connected by a ganglion of heavy black cable as thick as fire hose. It was 1,000 times faster than any numerical calculator, 500 times faster than any existing computing machine. In thirty seconds, ENIAC could calculate a trajectory, something that would require twenty hours with a desk calculator, or fifteen minutes on the machine then called the Differential Analyzer. Today's supercomputers, ENIAC's descendants, can perform the same task in three microseconds.
In the wrong hands, this would be a potentially Byzantine and impenetrable tale, but McCartney presents it with the perfect blend of skill, clarity, and most remarkably, humanity. He never forgets, or lets us readers forget, that like any story about technology, this is really a story about human beings. Mauchly and Eckert are well-drawn, fully developed characters in this powerful but ultimately sad, story.
Although the pair worked brilliantly together to build ENIAC, in the aftermath, their relationship, their work and their personal lives all suffered. Beset by back-stabbing, academic and legal intrigues, their own great naivete, and by financial and private setbacks, they were outflanked and financially outmaneuvered by other scientists, and by IBM and other emerging firms. Although they belatedly filed a patent on ENIAC, they spent much of the rest of their lives unsucessfully defending their invention against legions of claimants and competitors.
Worse, they have been almost universally forgotten by the astonishing subculture they made possible - at least, until now.
"ENIAC" is a not only a compelling and entertaining read, but offers the added satisfaction of helping right one of the more egregious oversights of the Information Age.
Purchase this book at Amazon.
It's rather like Lindberg flying across the Atlantic. About 110 people flew across the Atlantic before him, but Lindberg just happened to be the first solo flight, and the first American to get a significant record (the original flight was Alcock and Brown in a WWI Vickers bomber in 1919.)
And what significance does a solo flight really have in aviation technology?
(marginally off-topic, but not toxically so)
The real horror story of British cryptographic secrecy concerns what happened to Alan Turing after the war. Turing basically masterminded Bletchley Park, and did a lot of the design work on Colossus (for what it's worth, I would not consider Colossus the "first computer" because, IIRC it was not a universal Turing machine, which would be my criterion for "computerness". I'm less certain about the MkII, however).
Then he settled down to life after the war as a mathematician. But unfortunately, one of his lovers burgled his house, and in reporting the crime to the police, Turing accidentally revealed that he was gay.
We treated him shamefully. Turing saved us quite literally from salvation in the Battle of the Atlantic, and we pumped him so full of "experimental hormone treatments" that he grew breasts. Unsurprisingly, he committed suicide.
A pretty shocking way to treat a war hero, one might say. But, of course, nobody knew that he was one. He wasn't allowed to plead his war record, because it was all so very confidential.
Pretty sick if you ask me.
jsm
Fools!
Don't you know that the system known as ENIAC wouldn't have been possible without components first developed by the FSF?
RMS demands tribute! Change the name to GNU/ENIAC, or he'll hassle more reporters!
Nyuk nyuk nyuk... Hey, use BSD and really cheese off RMS.
Then the question becomes who built the first working electronic, stored program, digital computer.
P.S. Except maybe Charles Babagge thought of it too. I haven't studied his Analytical Engine.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Check out the story on the other side of the pond.
And now you have a chance to hear Konrad Zuse's son talk about his father's work! Check out the Vintage Computer Festival coming October 2-3 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the Silicon Valley.
Take a look at the web site at www.vintage.org for more info.
This is an event you simply don't want to miss if you are a computer historian, or just want to learn more about the history of our industry. The VCF will feature speakers, exhibits, and a marketplace where you can reacquire your past.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Sorry... It was early...
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
There are a lot of people out there (including myself) working feverishly to preserve the history of the computer industry.
If you have any interest in the subject, or want to find out about your professional roots, check out the VCF. It's also a perfect opportunity to show your kids what it was like back in the good old days before widely available internet access, GUI's, and virtually unlimited computer resources.
There will be exhibits, speakers, and a very active marketplace where you can pick up software, accessories, and even complete systems. One of the speakers will be Konrad Zuse's son, who will surely discuss his father's computers and their place in history relative to ENIAC.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
Actually, there are a lot of people who do collect computers/A> and are working to preserve the history of the computer industry. For example, see if you know what the first personal computer was!
Coming up soon is the Vintage Computer Festival where collectors, historians, and enthusiasts will gather for a week-end full of speakers, exhibits, and trading. Don't miss it if you possibly can!
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
/Engines of the Mind/ by Joel Shurkin is another great book that discusses mauchly and eckert in great length, their creating of the ENIAC and John Von Neuman's attempts to claim credit for their work...
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
The ABC (Atanassoff/Berry Computer) was definitely before ENIAC, and some of ENIAC's design was cribbed from the ABC. UNIVAC's patents were overturned in court in 1973 because of this.
Not only was the ABC built first, but Mauchly got a grand tour of the lab and of ABC years before building ENIAC. In fact, after Mauchly and Eckert had held the patent for a while on the digital computer, it was John Atanasoff's testimony that pretty much helped bust the patent due to prior art. (In fact, Atanasoff and Iowa State had begun putting together a patent application themselves, but WWII intervened, and the application was still sitting in a file cabinet at the university.)
I have forgotten the technical details, but as I recall, ENIAC did have some important technical improvements over the ABC. But the ABC does count as a pre-ENIAC electronic digital computer.
"Cleverness kills wisdom"
-- G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World
"Von Neumann became interested in the possibilities of electronic computing machines during the Second World War. In the beginning he was primarily concerned with the logic of the operation of such machines, but he was the first to devise a means by which a machine with fixed circuits could deal flexibly with a variety of mathematical problems. Before he had entered the field, the solution of each problem required a different set of wiring connections."
From Chapter 16:
"[D]uring 1944 and 1945, he formulated the now fundamental methods of translating a set of mathematical procedures into a language of instructions for a computing machine. The electronic machines of that time (e.g., the Eniac) lacked the flexibility and generality which they now possess in the handling of mathematical problems...The engineering of the computing machines owes a great deal to von Neumann. The logical schemata of the machines, the planning of the relative roles of their memory, their speed, the selection of fundamental 'orders' and their circuits in the present machines bear heavily the imprint of his ideas. Von Neumann himself supervised the construction of a machine at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton...In receiving the Fermi prize of the Atomic Energy Commission, von Neumann was cited especially for his contribution to the development of computing on the electronic machines..."
As you can see, it was in fact John von Neumann who *invented* the concept of the stored program and thus what we now understand as computers. While perhaps it was others who had the idea that electronic components could be strung together to solve problems (whether it was Zuse, Astanoff/Berry or Mauchley/ Eckert), it was von Neumann's conceptual breakthrough that opened the door to true computing.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
After all of the recent discussion of copyright, I'm surprised that no-one else has commented on this one... the AC post 'The book has an essential flaw' is cut & pasted exactly from a customer comment on the Amazon.com listing for this book. The original author was juergen@idsia.ch from Lugano, Switzerland. The initial comment was on August 26, 1999, with a followup on September 6.
Andy
The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
Thing is, I'm not sure what's the basis here for saying these guys invented the first computer. Basically, they fell into anonymity because they failed to produce something worthwhile during the course of WW2. Their computer calculated ballistic trajectories in 15 mins instead of a few hours? Turing, at the same time, was decoding German Enigma and screwing up the German war effort by himself.
It's not what you think of that matters, when it comes to innovation and invention; I probably thought about the concept of the next huge scientific revolution while taking a bath the other day. I once formulated the very basis of Superstring theory when I was in seventh grade. I thought up the idea of Quantum Chromodynamics while half-drunk at a friend's birthday party. I postulated the Internet's impact on commerce in a college philosophy class. The point here is, I couldn't use any of them, put them into an equation or found a company that would make Bill Gates beg me for change.
That is to say: it doesn't matter who thinks it first. What matters is what you do with it, and how fast you can chunk out results. We all get brilliant ideas, and that's why we don't remember who thought of something first, but rather, who invented something practical first.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
I thought the question "Who invented the first electronic computer?" was pretty much still an open one. Atanasoff, Zuse and various others come to mind. I understand ENIAC was probably the most influential early electronic computer; and a very important milestone, this is still controversial nevertheless.
It is amazing that historians still could not figure who really was the first. On second thought, I don't expect to, there are a lot of controversies in this field(recent examples: Two engineers from an aerospace company (Grumman, I believe) claim to have invented the microprocesor before Intel, and Russians and Americans are still debating on who invented the first superscalar computer).
So, who invented the first electronic computer really? This can turn into a really interesting discussion...
Of course, as with any computer architecture mentioned here, the quintessential Slashdot rule will still apply to ENIAC, and we shall soon see the obligatory posts about porting Linux to ENIAC and running a Beowulf cluster on reconstructed ENIACs.
Zigbee Central: A Zigbee weblog
If you are interested in the history of the first electronic digital computer you really should check out the site
Being an alumnus of Iowa State University, it always irks me when the ABC goes completely unmentioned in the history of computing.
Some information for those interested in such stuff:
;)
According to Bletchley Park (UK):
The world's first programmable computer, Colossus I, was designed and operated in Bletchley Park. It was used to obtain the key to a sophisticated German cypher used personally by Hitler and his High Command. Its success led to the building of ten more Mk II models, which were operational in F Block in 1944. This block, the world's first computer complex, is still standing in Bletchley Park.
But it would appear that programming is open to some interpretation so.. from cranfield univsersity (UK) comes some more information: from their web page
Colossus, hardware details
Input: cipher text punched onto 5 hole paper tape read at 5,000 characters per second by optical reader
Output: Buffered onto relays: Typewriter printing onto paper roll
Processor: Memory 5 characters of 5 bits held in a shift register. Clock speed 5kc/s derived from input tape sprocket holes. Internally generated bit streams totalling 501 bits in rings of lengths equal to the number of mechanical lugs on each of the 12 Lorenz wheels. A large number of pluggable logic gates. 20 decade counters arranged as 5 by 4 decades. 2,500 valves.
Power supplies: +200v to -150v at up to 10A.
Power consumption: 4.5KWatt
Size: Two banks of racks 7ft 6inches high by 16ft wide spaced 6 ft apart. Bedstead, 7ft 6inches high 4ft wide by 10ft long
Colossus, operating cycles
The basic machine cycle: read a character from tape, get bits from bit stream generators, perform up to 100 logic operations, clock result into decade counters.
The cycle determined by the input tape: The intercepted enciphered text tape is joined into a continuous loop with about 150 blank characters in the join. Specially punched start and stop holes indicate the beginning and end of the cipher text.
On receipt of start hole pulse: Start bit stream generators and send sampling pulses to reader output. Execute basic machine cycle until receipt of stop hole pulse: Staticise counter states onto relays. After a delay, reset counters and reset bit stream generators to a new start position.
Colossus programming
All programmes hard wired, some permanently, some pluggable. Conditional jumping possible between alternative programmes depending on counter outputs.
To conclude
does this constitute a "properly" programmable computer? Well it was at least partialy programmable, and the Mark II was even more so, but at the end of the day, as other people have said:
It's all a question of your deffinition
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Hi am sick to death of all this 'America is Holier than Thou' crap! America was not the home of the first digital computer, England had Colossus and used it to decipher the Enigma codes (For those of you who are arguing the term first 'useful' computer - I think that covers 'useful', don't you?). Why can't most of you see outside your own country? I mean REALLY! just listen to yourselves!
The significance of Eckert and Mauchly's ENIAC isn't necessarily that it was the very earliest design of a programmable computer. It is generally acknowledged that Charles Babbage had the idea of a machine to do arithmetic, but was limited by the technology of the time. It is intersting to note that ENIAC was put together by Eckert and Mauchly without any knowledge of Babbage and the work that had already been done. (They could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.)
What is MOST important about ENIAC is what it did, and when. It was the first computer project to recieve hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from the military.
It accurately showed that original plans for the H-bomb would not work.
The unveiling of the ENIAC merited a front page story on the New York Times. It sparked the imaginations of others to build better computers. It proved to everyone that age of electronically mechanized arithmetic had arrived.
The ENIAC's design subsequently spawned the EDVAC, BINAC, and the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Calculator, which accurately predicted Eisenhower's landslide presidential victory on CBS News, to the disbelief of CBS reporters and sponsors. The last UNIVAC lasted until 1969!)
Indeed, it may be argued which was really the very first computer, but it must be acknowledged that Eckert and Mauchly's ENIAC was the first major breakthrough in the field as far as publicity was concerned. And at the time, every bit of publicity that could be gained was critical to the advancement of computers.
But to get the most clear picture of the history of computers, we must look at it less like a singular, linear thread and more like a tapestry, with many significant things that happened simultaneously, many brilliant minds and contributors, and many stories that led up to what we have today.
Funny about how the history of computing is taught along national lines: I always learnt (I'm British) that the first general purpose computer (the Small Scale Experimental Machine, or SSEM) was built in Manchester, UK, in 1948, and german friends of mine learnt about the Z3 in school. Actually the SSEM was the first machine to store programs in memory: debatably a key component of the general purpose computer. I guess what counts as the first general purpose computer depends upon what you consider a machine needs to count as general purpose. Anyway you can read about the SSEM at Computer 50 .
The book has at least one essential flaw. The first working, fully programmable general purpose computer was Konrad Zuse's Z3 (Germany, 1941). ENIAC (inspired by Atanasoff's earlier, less general designs) was fully programmable too, but came much later (in 1946).
Both Atanasoff (US-American of Bulgarian origin) and Zuse built limited calculators in the 1930s (e.g., 1935-38 Zuse completed the Z1, the first fully mechanical, programmable digital machine, and Atanasoff built electronic devices). But if we include mere calculators among "computers" then neither Zuse nor Atanasoff were first. Non-general purpose devices have been around for a long time (since the days of Leibniz and Pascal).
Z3's switches were based on relays instead of tubes like in ENIAC. This is no fundamental difference. There are many ways of implementing a switch. Today we use transistors, of course.
The Z3 was destructed in an air raid in 1944. It never got the publicity of ENIAC. Still, 1966 - 1995 Zuse finally received uncountable awards and world-wide appreciation as "Inventor of the Computer."