PDF Download Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, by Scott McCartney

PDF Download Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, by Scott McCartney

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Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, by Scott McCartney

PDF Download Eniac: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, by Scott McCartney

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Amazon.com Review

Today's computers are fantastically complex machines, shaped by innovations dreamt up by hundreds of engineers and theorists over the last several decades. Does it even make sense, then, to ask who invented the computer? McCartney thinks so, and in ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer, he's written a compelling answer to the question, crediting two relatively unsung Pennsylvanians with what is arguably the most significant invention of the century. McCartney's heroes are Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, and as he makes clear, there are those who might question the choice. Nobody doubts the pair designed and built ENIAC, the world's first fully electronic computer and a watershed in the history of computing. But for years the importance of their contribution, made during World War II and sponsored by the U.S. Army, has been downplayed. The brilliant John von Neumann's subsequent theoretical papers on computer design have made him the traditional "father of modern computing." And Eckert and Mauchly later even lost the patent on their machine when it was claimed that another early experimenter, John Atanasoff, had given them all the ideas about ENIAC that mattered. But McCartney's meticulously researched narrative of Eckert and Mauchly's careers--covering the thrilling three years of ENIAC's construction and the frustrating decades of little recognition that followed--sets the record straight. He carefully weighs Atanasoff's claims and gives von Neumann the credit he earned for advancing computer science, but in the end he leaves no room for doubt: if anyone deserves to be remembered for inventing the computer, it's the two men whose tale he has told here so engagingly. --Julian Dibbell

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From Publishers Weekly

This account of how an engineer barely out of college and a physicist with dreams of predicting the weather, conceived and built the world's first computer. But it tells a great story, and Wall Street Journal staff writer McCartney (Defying the Gods: Inside the New Frontiers of Organ Transplants) makes a strong case that J. Presper Eckert, the engineer, and John Mauchly, the physicist, deserve better treatment from posterity than they have received. His narrative of the conception and construction in the mid-1940s of the giant ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) centers on the lives and work of these two unlikely collaborators, who met by chance in an engineering course. Funding for the project was tied directly to the war effort and an army desperate for fast number crunching. Among McCartney's controversial claims is that the "von Neumann architecture" for stored-program machines, the basis for all computers, did not originate with German ?migr? John von Neumann but rather with the ENIAC duo. The feuds and legal battles that dominate the second half of the book as various corporations battle for trade secrets and patents will be of interest mainly to buffs, though the unsuccessful struggles of Eckert and Mauchly to make a profit in the postwar shadow of IBM are poignant. McCartney offers excellent documentation, interesting asides (the world's first computer programmers were all women) and real drama as the team races to complete the apartment-sized, vacuum tube-powered ENIAC before the war's end. Doubleday Select Bookclubs special selection; author tour; audio rights to Blackstone. (June) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 262 pages

Publisher: Walker & Co (June 1, 1999)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0802713483

ISBN-13: 978-0802713483

Product Dimensions:

6.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.0 out of 5 stars

43 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#310,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

ENIAC is the story of the ENIAC computer, one of the worlds first computers created by Eckert and Mauchly during the second world war. The book claims ENIAC is the first general purpose digital computer, though some other reviewers have already pointed out that this is probably incorrect. Yet still, I found the story of ENIAC fascinating and consider it worth reading, especially for people who are interested in the history of computers.The book consists of eight chapters and is only a couple of hundreds of pages and is an easy read. The books follows the lives of Eckert and Mauchly chronologically, starting at their childhood and how they met. Eckert the more engineer focus and Mauchly the more theoretical focus together convince the US defense to fund the project of building ENIAC, the first electronic computer (or so they thought). In a couple of years, they build the ENIAC and it worked and was used for years after that. Eckert and Mauchly set up perhaps the first electronic computer company. They build several computers before being bought by larger companies.A large part of the book covers the struggle Eckert and Mauchly had over the patent battle for the computer patent, something they eventually lost. And how these great inventors never received enough credit (according to the author) for building one of the first electronic computers.The book was very easy to read. It is a "journalist book" and not a scientist book. This probably caused the better writing style, but also means that it is sometimes inaccurate or short on technical details. Thats said, there aren't much alternatives books or better studies in the lives of Eckert and Mauchly. If you like history of computing, then this is probably a book you want to read. Recommended, 4 stars.

If you mention the names Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates to a random group of people on the street they'll probably know exactly who you're talking about. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak invented the personal computer, and Bill Gates created software for personal computers. Everybody knows that. The three of them revolutionized the entire computer industry. However, if you were to mention the names Presper Eckert and John Mauchly to that same group of people, you'd probably get a few raised eyebrows and a pointed Who? But the two of them actually started the whole computer industry! So why doesn't anybody know who they are?Who are those guys, and why don't we automatically think of them when we talk computers is answered in Scott McCartney's fabulous book, ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer The author explains how Eckert and Mauchly came up with the hair-brained idea of an electronic computer in the first place; how they painstakingly built both ENIAC and UNIVAC from the ground up, and, then, how the very industry they had created turned viciously against them and drove the two real inventors of the electronic computer out of the public consciousness and into deep oblivion.Anybody who is fascinated by scientific cut throat will find this story absorbing, informative and even a little frightening. It's a literal road map of what not to do with your revolutionary idea. It should definitely be required reading for all aspiring inventors. I give the book 000001 bits.

Eniac is exciting, as riveting as the best fiction. What this book shines at is telling the story of people. I felt I really knew the players, felt the politics swirling, and the ache of frustration Mauchle and Eckert must have felt by the time I finished. The author found many rare photographs I've never seen in print before.My mind is changed about the history of the first computer. After checking the author's facts against what I thought I knew, I discovered that, as Will Rogers said, "It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble, it's what we do know that 'taint so." McCartney's book is an important work of scholarship, not yet another candy-coated trip down core memory lane.Bottom line: Eniac is a book worth reading and worth owning. Read it, visit a library and use the excellent bibliography to check the author's conclusions.

Scott McCartney has written an excellent counterbalance to the current literature on the invention of the computer. It is a fine contrast to Herman Goldstine's book on the subject. Here, we see a johnny-come-lately view of the great mathematician John von Neumann, a man whose profound insight into the future value of an all-electronic calculating machine gives him the shared title of inventor of computer science (along with A. Turing), not the computer. This book leaves us no doubt, it was Eckert and Mauchly's creation, a plum that many others wanted credit for once it matured. The general purpose electronic computer is fittingly the invention of an electrical engineer (Eckert) and a visionary physicist (Mauchly). This is also a good resource on the entry by women into the world of computers. I was only disappointed that McCartney did not include a bit more of the technical, engineering details about ENIAC, and its comparison to the COLOSSUS, perhaps in an appendix.

A very interesting book, you will know why you never hear about the two inventors of the first computer, you will also read abut how it was composed of approx 18,000 vacuum tubes and was the size of a bus and weighed tons. It's a classic story of how two unknown people invented something that should have made them rich beyond their wildest dreams but lost credit to a big "name" scientist and even, well I won't spoil it for you.

Gives details about the background and development of the ENIAC computer not found elsewhere.

This is a very good book about a story that should be in the media but is not.

I made a mistake in my review. The Eniac may have been the first electronic digital computer at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

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