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THE FIRST STORED-PROGRAM COMPUTERS
The desire of Mauchly and Eckert to patent—and profit from—what they had helped to invent caused problems at Pe
They formed what became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, based in Philadelphia, and were pioneers in turning computing from an academic to a commercial endeavor. (In 1950 their company, along with the patents they would be granted, became part of Remington Rand, which morphed into Sperry Rand and then Unisys.) Among the machines they built was UNIVAC, which was purchased by the Census Bureau and other clients, including General Electric.
With its flashing lights and Hollywood aura, UNIVAC became famous when CBS featured it on election night in 1952. Walter Cronkite, the young anchor of the network’s coverage, was dubious that the huge machine would be much use compared to the expertise of the network’s correspondents, but he agreed that it might provide an amusing spectacle for viewers. Mauchly and Eckert enlisted a Pe
Eckert and Mauchly did not forget the importance of the women programmers who had worked with them at Pe
Mauchly also hired the dean of them all, Grace Hopper. “He let people try things,” Hopper replied when asked why she let him talk her into joining the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. “He encouraged i
Like a salty crew member, Hopper valued an all-hands-on-deck style of collaboration, and she helped develop the open-source method of i
Von Neuma
After Mauchly and Eckert left, Pe
Despite the exodus, Pe
The distinction of being the first stored-program computers went to two machines that were completed, almost simultaneously, in the summer of 1948. One of them was an update of the original ENIAC. Von Neuma