Computer Designers

The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) fired up its 18,000 vacuum tubes in a large room at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania just after the end of World War II. Its youthful designers, (John) Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, looked on with a mixture of pride and anticipation.

Eckert was the chief engineer of the ENIAC. He developed the idea of a reduced electrical load to increase the reliability of the fragile tubes in the machine. Mauchly, effectively the chief scientist, left the hardware problems to Eckert and kept the more fluid software and logic development for himself. Mauchly convinced his younger colleague of the general utility of a perfected model of the machine that they had built for the U.S. Army to calculate tables for firing artillery more accurately and quickly.

J. Presper Eckert...