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ENIAC Story on NPR 105

Posted by Hemos from the story-of-the-makers dept.
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.
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ENIAC Story on NPR More

ENIAC Story on NPR

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  • and then didn't follow through to completion

    Because Atanasoff was called away for the war effort and didn't return to Iowa State after the war.

  • About 2 years back, my son and I went through that wing of the American History museum. The scary part was, I spotted a TI Silent 700 terminal behind the glass display. It was a newer model than the ones we used in college....
  • ENIAC wasn't the First computer. There were mechanical computers years before this, such as Hollerith's. Mechanical calculators had been around for years... they were used in the 1890 census and was the foundation of a company called International Business Machines.(you may have heard of them?) ENIAC wasn't even the first electronic digital computer. That honor belongs to Atanasoff/Berry who built the ABC at Iowa State University. This claim was proven in court and unfortunately released the same day watergate broke into the news. What ENIAC was, was the first electronic digital computer which was useable for doing real work. The ABC was nothing more than a research project to see if it could be done. Important in history, but not necessarily the First.
  • The mouse was invented at xerox, they tried all sorts of input method and the mouse won. Yes they tried a trackball but it was slower. The only thing that was faster was some sort of device strapped to the knee. (Faster means, move from here to a precise spot on the screen.)

    I saw a picture of the original mouse, can't remember where though. It looks almost like todays mice - not much change.

    Transistor was at bell labs. I keep thinking it was someone named shockley.

    The joystick wasn't really invented, it started as a game paddle on the apple. (It's not really all the much of an invention, just a capistor/variable-resistor timing circut. (No cheap A2D's back then.)

  • I agree that gender/race/lifestyle/economic class variety is sorely needed in the computer community. But I'm not sure I agree that "it breeds a hostile environment for anyone who's not a white heterosexual male." It seems to be a self-fulfilling stereotype: white hetero male nerds see other white hetero male nerds using computers and realize they should use them. Since that makes up the majority of the population, the web sites, info, entertainment, interests, etc. tend to cater toward those who create them.

    Of course, being a white hetero male myself, I guess I see the world through severely filtered eyes. Are there any good examples of this "hostile environment?"

    The only thing that comes to me, regarding gender at least, is the notion that girls aren't any good in science and math. That sort of stereotype perpetuates through (at least American) schools, until it fulfills itself. Math and science closely relate to computers, and until pc video games were the only thing drawing kids to use them. So that would explain that.

    This is not a new topic, so there must be some research or at least writings on this. Anybody know where?
  • Remember the names of the guy's that wrote the first spreadsheet?


    Dan Bricklin, as I recall. He invented Visicalc. The company failed, but Lotus bought out the shell and he still received hundreds of thousands of dollars for his efforts.



    How about the guy(s) that invented the transistor.


    Shockley, as I recall. He went on to infamy as a proponent of theories that some races are smarter than others. Everyone said, hey, the guy invented the transistor, he must know what he is talking about when it comes to theories about races of people. (Not!)



    Or the mouse,

    Got me there.


    or the joystick,


    What? The joystick is important now? I have not used one in several years, and I use a computer every few hours I am awake.


    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.


    Shockley and Bricklin are not as famous as Bill Gates, but they are nearly famous.




  • Sounds like many others here have heard that the British Colossus beat ENIAC by a mile. So why isn't it even mentioned in the ENIAC book? Shall we write snarky letters to the author, or just shrug it off?
  • Going to school at Iowa State University and taking many a Computer Science class, one could not help but hear the stories about ABC computer.

    I've always thought that the true "First Digital Computer" should go to the ABC. It is true that because it was built a physics prof and a grad student for research, stability wasn't the best but it was more than enough to prove digital computing theories they put forth.

    Here is the Ames Lab's web page on their project to construct a replica [ameslab.gov] the ABC machine. Each drum could hold up to 30, 50 bit numbers...that is only 3,000 bits(.4K). That is computing power! :-)

  • Actually, the question of the first computer is extremely in debate. The patent for the first electronic digital computer is held by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University, whose machine, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, predates WW2. Just to make a finer point, Mauchly and Eckert studied that machine when designing the ENIAC. The ENIAC just happens to be a multi-purpose machine, instead of being hard-wired to a single purpose. More information at http://www.cs.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/hit-count?jva/jv a-archive.html Remember, truth is relative to those that believe it. More than likely, the ABC was not first...
  • 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.

  • "Then run xntpd..."

    Does that work for VHS machines or just Betamax?

  • The Koreans had moveable wooden type set in wooden racks long before anyone in the west.

    In fact, they made a good trade out of printing prayers and poems and religious passages for the Chinese and Japanese market.
  • Yup, Manchester Mark 1, the Small Scale Experimental Machine or "Baby" is the first that could run a stored program - or at least that's what I've always been taught. I'll have to look into this one from Iowa, but I admit I've never heard it quoted.

    I still say that I've only ever heard ENIAC referred to as a calculator...

    Greg
  • There's an argument to be made (I dont think we've reached the point in history yet to make it though) that the invention of the computer will be akin to the invention of the printing press, that it is an invention that is so monumental that it creates incredible change.

    Like I said, I dont think we are at a point in history yet where we could make such an assertion, but there are plenty of others that will argue it with you to the end.

    -Rich
  • ....and in 50 years time they'll also say:
    The computer industry wouldn't be as it is today if not for people like RMS. Thank god for the GPL :)
  • jonas salk (I might have his first name off by a bit) invented the polio vaccine

    I thought everyone knew that

    oh well. I'm overestimating the human race again, aren't I?

  • Ooh, I'm sorry... nice try! But hey, thanks for playing, and better luck next time!

    The mouse was invented at xerox,

    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

    The joystick wasn't really invented, it started as a game paddle on the apple. (It's not really all the much of an invention, just a capistor/variable-resistor timing circut.

    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.

  • If you look at the "history" of computing on Encarta, you get an Orwellian timeline which suggests just that. Scary.
  • ENIAC is historically important. But it wasn't the first digital electronic system - that was either Colussus or the ABC, depending on how you count. And the chief designer of the ENIAC had studied the ABC.

    And, ENIAC wasn't the first stored-program computer. It was the generation after ENIAC that did that. Maurice Wilkes (who is still with us) was the first to run a stored program. Good random access memory came even later: Wilkes (and the ENIAC follow-on, the Univac I) had to use serial memory.

    And ENIAC had a very inefficient design. It didn't use binary arithmetic: it sent the digit "7" by sending 7 pulses, like an old mechanical telephone exchange. It was probably Von Neumann who realised that binary would use a lot fewer vaccuum tubes.

    So, the ENIAC guys were bold, and pretty good, but they don't have a clear claim to just about any of the Big Concepts. What they really contributed was to snag the interest and committment of a broad military and scientific community.
  • I've heard that over 200 airlines still use Unisys 2200-series mainframes, including the one I work for, and those are direct descendants of the Sperry 1100-series boxes.
    --
    -Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
  • Acutally, I think the first computer was the Atanasoff Berry Computer (Ames Lab [ameslab.gov]). A court trial voided the patent awarded to ENIAC. There's a lot at the site, but it's a must-read if you've ever belived that ENIAC was in any way the first computer. I've seen the ABC replica (at the Iowa State Fair, laugh, laugh) and it's not a very big machine, and it can do not a whole lot, but it's an electronic digital computer.
  • An *excellent* book for those interested in the history of these early vacuum tube computers is:

    Nancy Stern, "From ENIAC to UNIVAC - An Appraisal of the Eckert-Mauchly Computers" (Digital Press, Bedford, Massachusetts, 1981)

    Highly recommended.

  • And, of course, the fact the Alan Turing committed suicide after being castrated by order of the courts is not something the British establishment likes to be reminded about. Typically British: probably our single greatest person of the century, without whom the war would not have been won, who invented probably the most momentous invention of the century, has a consenting relationship with another adult... Gosh! Shock! Horror! Off with his balls!
  • Those URL's are worth visiting, especially the 1939 foto of his contraption perched in the middle of his parents' apartment. Complete with 1 HP motor (how many HP was the ENIAC? :-)). Additional discussion in back issues of c't magazine.

    It gradually dawns that this thing was a flat-out Wang programmable calculator (when in doubt, Wang it!), minus the Nixie tube readouts and some built-in functions. I mean, it did floating-point!!

    And not only did Zuse avoid "unreliable" vacuum tubes in favor of relays...even relays weren't good enough: he made his OWN relays!! I remember reading of one chap processing wafers in an electric frying pan. That was in the early '80s, but haven't read of anyone doing home semiconductors recently - FPGAs seem to have taken the wind out of personal innovation.
  • Pretty neet ..
  • Does anyone have a link to a transcript?

    -Adam

    Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
    -- Indian proverb
  • Walk out on the street, pull someone aside, and ask if they know what ENIAC was. Chances are, you'll get "uhhhh....huh?" Not many people care about the history of Computers. They just want one.

    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?

  • So what? Why do you think computing is so important?

    Who invented the polio vaccine?
    Who invented pre-stressed concrete?
    Who invented plate glass?
    Who invented SCUBA equipment?
    Who invented L.E.D's?
    What was the first jet engine called?
    What was the first steamship called and who invented it?
    Who invented the telegraph (hint, NOT the electric telegraph, the one before that)

    When these things are first invented they are just minor bits of research - only later do they turn out to be very important, and the names of the people behind them are forgotten by then.

    It was ever thus - computing is the great white hope at the moment, but in years to come computers will be as commonplace, and as interesting, as gas turbines, plate glass, pre-formed concrete, and L.E.D's. And no one will care about the fact no one cares who started it all.

    P.S. Please don't all start searching the web for answers to the above questions :-)
  • Anyone in the Washington DC area: If you have not been to the American History museum lately, they have a wing set up showing off all sorts of really old machines. There are a number of ENIAC pieces there as well as MANIAC, the good old TRaSh80, C-64 (my first one), a pretty old DEC, and all sorts of cool stuff. Well worth a look. They have it set up so you're basically walking down through the years of geek memory lane. I spent a good hour in there!

    They also have a pretty cool exhibit in the main hall on materials used to make things. Basically, they have a bunch of cool 'things' and they tell you what they're made of on the little cards. One of the cool 'things' is the actual "60 Minutes" stopwatch.
  • Of course it doesn't exist anymore, being so large and taking up so much valuable space. A common EE project at Penn is to make ENIAC on a chip.

    Interestingly enough, the space ENIAC once occupied is now taken up by the Engineering department's servers, also called eniac (as well as many other things).
  • how much does it retail for? is it expensive, it being an antique and all, or a $2 paper weight?

    ----------
    Have FreeBSD questions?
  • they probably couldn't possibly do that because, as computers are so important/popular/fun today, the position of being the first computer is/would be such an honor that they'll probably always fight for it, unless/until it can be proven who actually was the first..
  • Since it seems obvious that no one can agree what the first computer was and who invented it, can't all the pretenders to the crown just agree to refer to themselves as:

    "One of the first computers"?

    Otherwise we'll spend ages arguing about Babbage's difference engine vs ENIAC vs Err, the Bletchly Park machine, vs whatever.

    Sigh...
  • one comment in the story is interesting. "everyone saw the possibilities; there was an AP story that said an electronic brain had been created." (paraphrased) while a mild exageration it was along the right lines - my question: why can't today's media grok computers?

    the end is also interesting: "with the removal of sperry's patent the computer industry flourished." (again, paraphrased) yes, it did. on the same topic, what's the reasoning for software patents again?
  • 12 of those would make a large Beowulf.

    cool!

  • Who invented the computer?

    Answer: Al Gore.

  • 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

  • In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. (I know someone who work there, and visited him a few times. Apparently, they do tours from time to time.)

    You can look at the stuff about it at The Birth Of The Information Age exhibit [upenn.edu]. For something deeeeeply funky, I suggest looking through the programming manual [upenn.edu]. You can, in fact write PROGRAMS for ENIAC, even today.

    I find this highly amusing.

  • Who invented the polio vaccine? That's easy - Jonas Salk.

    Who invented plate glass? Doesn't that go way back?

    Who invented SCUBA equipment? Another easy one, Jacques Cousteau.

    What was the first steamship called and who invented it? I was under the impression that there is some dispute over the steamship invention, but the names elude me for the moment.

    Who invented the telegraph Hmmm, that's one people ought to know, but I have to confess to cluelessness. It wouldn't have been Mr. Morse, would it? On a vaguely related subject, the last Morse code transmitting stations in the world shut down last month. I never did earn that merit badge anyway.

    Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity

  • I met Scott McCartney on a book tour -- smart guy who did a lot of research. A book well worth picking up.

    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/

  • 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).

    ----

  • From the American Heritage Dictoinary:

    "calculator- A mechanical or electronic machine that performs mathematical operations"

    "abacus- A manual counting and computing device consisting of a frame holding parallel rods wth movable beads".

    So I think that the chinese beat everybody by a thousand years or so.
  • U Penn also recreated ENIAC on a chip:

    http://www.ee.upenn.edu/~jan/eniacproj.html [upenn.edu]

  • ... that if you stay in the business long enough, you'll eventually turn into a suicidal gay woman? Time to take up music.
  • was developed in 1943 to decipher German codes. It contained 1,500 vacuum tubes and was based on several electronic decipering machines ("bombs") built by Alan Turing.
  • Maybe it wasn't poor engineering of the hardware, maybe they just had microsoft working on the software for it.
  • >Who invented SCUBA equipment? Another easy one, Jacques Cousteau.

    Not to nitpick, but I believe that SCUBA pre-dates the great Monsieur Cousteau.
    He did, however, invent the aqualung ( a LARGE advance on the SCUBA technology, allowing 10+ hour submersion times regardless of depth )

  • He most certainly did! It was digital too, the size of a small room. He also invented a big adding machine. Give him some credit!
  • The first electronic programmable computer was Collosus, the Bletchley Park machine that broke the Enigma and Lorenz keys in WW2. The reason ENIAC tends to get mentioned (despite it really only being a calculator, in all honesty) is that Collosus was kept under wraps by the government and destroyed after the war. Also, I don't think it helps that most of the computing and net communities are still based in the USA, where ENIAC was developed IIRC :P

    Sorry, but that's the truth.

    Greg
  • There's more info about Colossus here [cranfield.ac.uk], where they make the obvious point that "The question of what is the worlds first computer is less a question of history than a question of definition."

    My personal vote goes to the "Manchester Baby", which has an extensive homepage [computer50.org] all to itself.

    Of course, Babbage [ox.ac.uk] can claim not only to have invented the first computer, but also the first printer - they're in the process of building it at the Science Museum in London (UK) right now. No reference to it on their web page [nmsi.ac.uk], unfortunately.
  • Personally, I don't plan to base my opinions about matters computing on the opinions of Iowan judges, excellent people though I'm sure they are. My Casio wristwatch is a more general-purpose device than the ABC was, and yet I don't try to claim it as a "computer".

  • My $25 or less Casio wristwatch keeps time *much* better (i.e., with greater accuaracy) than $2500 PC's or $250 VCR's. It saddens me that the world is that way.

  • I've read tne new book on ENIAC. Quite good. The author makes a persuasive case that Eckert and Mauchly deserve the credit for creating the first modern computer. The book also does a good job of questioning the claims made on behalf of John Von Neumann and Dr. Atanosoff of Iowa State University. The one thing I was left wondering about was the claim I've heard that the real number one was built in Britain to help with cracking German codes. They had a project called Colossus which some claim was the first real computer. The ENIAC book doesn't even mention it. Anybody know about the Colossus project--and no, I don't mean the Forbin Project...;-)
  • I had the honor of knowing Pres as a casual acquantaince. I went to high school with one of his children, and he lived right down the street from my parents.

    At the time (back in 1989 or so) I was a rabid deadhead and was very much into recording live music. I liked all kinds of music, including classical.

    Round Christmas time they were performing Messiah at my church. So I decided to pack up my recording gear and record the performance. Little did I know at the time but my friend's dad (Pres) was also going to be there to record the show, because the musical director was a family friend of theirs. So that night I met Pres Eckert. I was an aspiring computer hacker at the time, so it was quite a treat.

    So I whip out my little Marantz 430 dbx (a nice portable battery powered tape deck), my mike stand, my shotgun mikes and omnidirectional (JVC's and a Nakamichi omnipoint CM 100). I thought I was pretty hot s**t.

    Meanwhile Pres and some of his family members start to set up THEIR equipment. I couldn't believe the stuff they had! Digitial to Analog PCM converter so they could record digital direct to a portable 4-head VCR they had, awesome super long mike cables, and these top of the line $800 a piece German mikes I forget the name of (NOT including the power supply needed for each one).

    So my eyes are bugging out my head. Seeing that I was a fellow audiophile, Pres whips out this little graph of the frequency response of the mikes and other technical stuff and starts babbling on to me about all sorts of technical details related to the mikes and his setup. We sat and talked recording for quite a while. He was definitely a major "gadget freak" as most of us here are. His mikes, by the way, were the reference standard that were used to gauge most other mikes at the time! Wow...

    So I am blown away. Over the next year I "sat in" to make some recordings of other performances they could not make it to. After these I would go their house to mix them down.

    I don't want to share too many personal details, but I think its ok for me to say that he had some awesome hi-fi systems, and lots of gadgets everywhere. One time when I was there he and one of his sons were busy hooking up an oscilloscope to a VCR to measure something like the "white saturation" of the deck. I think they were callibrating it for something, maybe digital recording.


    I remember shaking my head as I watched these guys throwing oscilloscopes around the house and hooking them up to things like they were just another usual household appliance. They totally had the "mad scientist" thing going.

    Over my 13 years of working computers in the Philly area I have met up with many of the "older guard" who warked with Eckert and Maukly too. I worked for a guy back in 1993 who actually worked with Seymour Cray. If you ever want a real treat and meet one of these folks, make sure you take some time to go out to lunch and have them tell you about the crazy old computer days they grew up in. It will really make you appreciate where we are today and the feeling that we are trully standing on the shoulders of giants.

    I was deeply saddened to hear of Pres's death a few years ago. He definitely was a somewhat under appreciated piece of all of us hackers' history.
  • ...the machines developed by Konrad Zuse in the 1930s, a German engineer who spent hours building the (as some people claim) first programmable computer simply because he was too lazy to do the math by hand...
  • Dedicated to all the ms-trolls who've been here lately, who wouldn't recognize ENIAC if it fell on their heads.

    (Go ahead, moderate this down. It deserves it.)
  • ENIAC WAS NOT THE FIRST COMPUTER!!!

    Attanasof Berry developed the first computer at Iowa State University.
    This is fact, and has even been fought in a court battle (Berry won, of course)

    see http://www.iastate.edu/abc.html [iastate.edu]
  • Who invented the polio vaccine?
    Who invented pre-stressed concrete?
    >Who invented plate glass?

    Al Gore

    >Who invented SCUBA equipment?

    Al Gore

    >Who invented L.E.D's?

    Al Gore

    >What was the first jet engine called?

    TipperJet

    >What was the first steamship called and who >invented it?

    TipperTanic, Al Gore

    >Who invented the telegraph (hint, NOT the electric telegraph, the one before that)

    Al Gore

  • Not to be picky, but this is history, so we should be correct:

    While ENIAC probably was the first computer built with tubes, Zuse's machine eventually was the real first computer.

    Built with mechanical relays during world war two.

    If we define computer as "program driven calculation machine".

    Don't know if there were earlier machines from others (not only planned, but existing and functional).
  • Wasn't Visicorp Dan Bricklin?
  • There is an interesting reading on the ENIAC and inventors at PENN's library site. It rather focuses on the inventors' side and talks about before and after ENIAC. The pages are pretty and I enjoyed reading it.

    John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer [upenn.edu]

  • Plate glass was invented relatively recently by a Mr. Pilkington - can't remember if he was anything to do with Pilkington glass or not.

    The point here is that old sheetas of glass were basically made by blowing a bulb, popping it and then flattening it out - hence the old windows with the bulbous bit and the mark in the middle. Not so good for large sheets of plate glass, so that's floated on mercury and passed through rollers IIRC.

    Does anyone else watch Local Heroes (http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/archive/local_hero es97/index.shtml - sorry, the HTML reader wasn't giving a link on preview) on the BBC and, if so, can they remember?

    Greg

  • Weren't the Mark 1 and it's forerunner the "Small-Scale Experimental Machine" (SSEM) build at the University of Manchester, England? Here's [computer50.org] a link with some substantion.
  • The joystick was actually invented at MIT so that the hackers could play Spacewar without mangling their fingers on the PDP's input switches. (Read "Hackers" by Steven Levy.)
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • 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.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • 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. The community needs to encourage more gender and racial parity, and facts like these won't be novelties.
  • I'm surprised there's only been one mention of Charles Babbage so far. If Ada Lovelace is credited as being the first Computer Programmer, and she wrote programs for Babbage, and there had to be a computer for her to program, then why isn't Babbage credited?
  • And who invented the printing press? Got the answer? If you said "Guttenberg", you're wrong; he merely came up with the idea of movable type. I'll grant that this was an excellent innovation; it made it much easier to set up a press. However, the printing press (which is the example you mentioned) had already been invented, and with it the ability to mass-produce printed matter.

    Movable type was inevitable. Guttenberg, like many inventors, is merely given credit for thinking of it first.
  • Now how do we get countries especially those in western Europe to agree?! I'm surprised no one else have posted with my subject line!
    No flame wars please :)
  • ENIAC's programmers were all women, which seems especially ironic today.

    Also, Turing, the (or a) father of computer science, was gay and depressed and eventually committed suicide. I dunno if that says anything about the biz, but it's something to think about.
  • The reason why no-one knew about Colossus being the first "modern" electrical computer until recently is due to the fact that it was still classified by the British Ministry of Defence. Details of the machine were only released a couple of years ago. It had been developed as a faster method to crack the German Enigma and Shark codes during WWII than the mechanical codebreakers they had used previously. Some interesting books on the subject include "Station X: The codebreakers of Bletchley Park" by Michael Smith, and a fictionalised murder mystery set in and around Bletchley Park: "Enigma" by Robert Harris. The actual codebreaking details described in the Harris book are accurate. The "Station X" book is a companion to a series they showed on Channel 4 in the UK earlier this year.
  • ...anyone else want to fill in the other entries? VisiCorp invented the spreadsheet, but I can't remember the names of the people.
    --
  • Konrad Zuse's son will be at the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org] this fall to talk about his father's work -- definitely worth seeing/hearing.

  • Whether the ABC was 100% reliable isn't the issue (especially since none of the early computers were). It worked enough to demonstrate a proof of concept. As for poor engineering, the ABC was built by a physics professor and a grad student, not by electrical engineers. The issue is that the concept of ENIAC as well as significant portions of its design philosophy were borrowed from the ABC. Enough that Univac's patents were invalidated after an extensive court battle.

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