Eckert and Mauchly examine a printout of ENIAC results in a newsreel from February 1946.

John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. (born April 9, 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died June 3, 1995 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in computing topics (the Moore School Lectures), founded the first commercial computer company Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and designed the first commercial computer in the U.S., the UNIVAC, which incorporated Eckert's invention of the mercury delay line memory. Image File history File links PresEckertJohnMauchlyENIAC.jpg‎ J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, inventors of the ENIAC, examine a printout of the computers results in newsreel footage from February 1946. ... Image File history File links PresEckertJohnMauchlyENIAC.jpg‎ J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, inventors of the ENIAC, examine a printout of the computers results in newsreel footage from February 1946. ... April 9 is the 99th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (100th in leap years). ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... Nickname: City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Cradle of Liberty, the City That Loves You Back, the Quaker City, The Birthplace of America Motto: Philadelphia maneto - Let brotherly love continue Location in Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States State Pennsylvania County Philadelphia Founded October 27, 1682 Incorporated October 25, 1701 Mayor... June 3 is the 154th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (155th in leap years), with 211 days remaining. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bryn Mawr is in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, along U.S. Highway Route 30 (Lancaster Avenue). ... A BlueGene supercomputer cabinet. ... Eckert and Mauchly examine a printout of ENIAC results in a newsreel from February 1946. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer[1], was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems[2], although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ... Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers (popularly called the Moore School Lectures) was the a course in the construction of electronic digital computers held at the University of Pennsylvanias Moore School of Electrical Engineering between July 8, 1946 and August 30, 1946, and was the first... The Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. ... UNIVAC I Central Complex, containing the central processor and main memory unit. ... Mercury memory of UNIVAC I (1951) Delay line memory was a form of computer memory used on some of the earliest digital computers, such as the EDSAC and UNIVAC I. The basic concept of the delay line originated with World War II radar research, specifically to reduce clutter from reflections...

Education

Eckert was born to a wealthy real estate developer John Eckert and was raised in a large house in Philadelphia's Germantown section. During elementary school, he was driven by chauffeur to William Penn Charter School, and in high school joined the Engineer's Club of Philadelphia and spent afternoons at the electronics laboratory of television inventor Philo Farnsworth in Chestnut Hill. He placed second in the country on the math portion of the College Board examination.^[1] Germantown was originally the Borough of Germantown, a town in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania and is today a neighborhood in Philadelphia, about six miles northwest from the center of the city. ... The William Penn Charter School The William Penn Charter School, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was established in 1689 by William Penn as a day school and is the oldest Quaker school in the world. ... Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor. ... Chestnut Hill is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of Philadelphia. ... The College Board is a non-profit examination board in the United States that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB). ...

Eckert initially enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to study business at the encouragement of his parents, but in 1937 transferred to Penn's Moore School of Electrical Engineering. In 1940, at age 21, Eckert applied for his first patent, "Light Modulating Methods and Apparatus".[1] At the Moore School, Eckert participated in research on radar timing, made improvements to the speed and precision of the Moore School's differential analyzer, and in 1941 became a laboratory assistant for a defense training summer course in electronics offered through the Moore School by the United States Department of War. This article is about the private university in Philadelphia. ... Wharton School is the business school of University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4th, 1923. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... This long range Radar antenna, known as ALTAIR, is used to detect and track space objects in conjunction with ABM testing at the Ronald Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein atoll[1]. Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine and map the location, direction, and/or speed... The differential analyser was a mechanical analog computer invented by Vannevar Bush in 1927. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film). ... Line drawing of the Department of Wars seal. ...

Invention of the ENIAC

Dr. John Mauchly, then chairman of the physics department of nearby Ursinus College, was a student in the summer electronics course, and the following fall secured a teaching position at the Moore School. Mauchly's proposal for building an electronic digital computer using vacuum tubes, many times faster and more accurate than the differential analyzer for computing ballistics tables for artillery, caught the interest of the Moore School's Army liason, Lieutenant Herman Goldstine, and on April 9, 1943 was formally presented in a meeting at Aberdeen Proving Ground to director Colonel Leslie Simon, Oswald Veblen, and others. A contract was awarded for Moore School's construction of the proposed computing machine, which would be named ENIAC, and Eckert was made the project's chief engineer. ENIAC was completed in late 1945 and was unveiled to the public in February, 1946. Ursinus College is a small, coeducational, liberal arts college in Collegeville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. ... In electronics, a vacuum tube or (outside North America) thermionic valve or just valve, is a device generally used to amplify, switch or otherwise modify, a signal by controlling the movement of electrons in an evacuated space. ... Ballistics (gr. ... Historically, artillery (from French artillerie) refers to any engine used for the discharge of projectiles during war. ... Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was one of the original developers of ENIAC. He worked closely with John von Neumann. ... April 9 is the 99th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (100th in leap years). ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... Aberdeen Proving Ground is a United States Army proving ground located in Harford County, Maryland at Aberdeen, Maryland. ... Leslie Earl Simon was an American scientist(born 1900-? )[1], and the author of the book, German Research in World War II: an analysis of the conduct of research. ... Oswald Veblen (24 June 1880 - 10 August 1960) was an American mathematician. ... ENIAC ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer[1], was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems[2], although earlier computers had been built with some of these properties. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Entrepreneurship

Both Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School in March 1946 over a dispute involving assignations of claims on intellectual property developed at the University. In that year, the University of Pennsylvania adopted a new patent policy to protect the intellectual purity of the research it sponsored, which would have required Eckert and Mauchly to assign all their patents to the University had they stayed beyond March. Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

Eckert and Mauchly's agreement with the University of Pennsylvania was that Eckert and Mauchly retained the patent rights to the ENIAC but the University could license it to the government and non-profit organizations. The University wanted to change the agreement so that they would also have commercial rights to the patent.

In the following months, Eckert and Mauchly started up the Electronic Control Company which built the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC). One of the major advances of this machine, which was used from August 1950, was that data was stored on magnetic tape. The Electronic Control Company soon became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and it received an order from the National Bureau of Standards to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). In 1950, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation ran into financial troubles and was acquired by Remington Rand Corporation. The UNIVAC I was finished in December 1950. The Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. ... BINAC, the Binary Automatic Computer, was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1949. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Compact audio cassette Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip. ... As a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce’s Technology Administration, the National Institute of Standards (NIST) develops and promotes measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. ... A Remington Rand branded typewriter Remington Rand was an early American computer manufacturer, best known as the original maker of the UNIVAC I, and now part of Unisys. ... UNIVAC I Central Complex, containing the central processor and main memory unit. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Later career

Eckert remained with Remington Rand and became an executive within the company. He continued with Remington Rand as it merged with the Burroughs Corporation to become Unisys in 1986. In 1989, Eckert retired from Unisys but continued to act as a consultant for the company. He died of leukemia in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS), based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, United States, and incorporated in Delaware[2], is a global provider of information technology services and solutions. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... HI CAMOIN thIS IS YOUR FRIEND CJ Leukemia (leukaemia in British English) is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow and is characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, usually white blood cells (leukocytes). ... Bryn Mawr is in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and Delaware County, Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, along U.S. Highway Route 30 (Lancaster Avenue). ...

Some computer historians--and Eckert himself--believed that the widely-adopted term von Neumann architecture should properly be known as the "Eckert Architecture," since the stored-program concept central to the von Neumann architecture had already been developed at the Moore School by the time von Neumann arrived on the scene in 1944-1945. Design of the Von Neumann machine The Von Neumann architecture is a computer design model that uses a single storage structure to hold both instructions and data. ... Design of the Von Neumann machine The Von Neumann architecture is a computer design model that uses a single storage structure to hold both instructions and data. ...

References

• From Dits to Bits... : A Personal History of the Electronic Computer, Herman Lukoff, 1979. Robotics Press, ISBN 0-89661-002-0

External links

• A Tribute to Dr. J. Presper Eckert Co-Inventor of ENIAC. 2000 Daniel F. McGrath, Jr.
• ENIAC museum at the University of Pennsylvania
• Q&A: A lost interview with ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert
• 1989 interview of Eckert by Alexander Randall 5th, published February 23, 2006 on KurzweilAI.net. Includes Eckert's reflections on the creation of ENIAC.
• Interview with EckertTranscript of a video interview with Eckert by David Allison for the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution on February 2, 1988. An in-depth, technical discussion on the ENIAC, including the thought process behind the design.