1. John Mauchly
ENIAC computer
Aras Bilgen

2. John William Mauchly Born on 30 August 1907 in Cincinnati, Ohio
Brought up in a scientist community
due to his father's job
Undergraduate as EE in John Hopkins,
then physics PhD
Married in 1930
Started teaching physics in Ursinus College in 1940
Went to Upenn to learn more about electronics
The mind behind the idea of a general purpose computer
Died January 9, 1980 in Ambler, Pennsylvania

3. Interests Tennis, walk in the woods, Edgar Allan Poe stories
Used a jet propelled skateboard to demonstrate Newton's principles in the class
Keeps daily notes and even records his sleep
Felt that "engineering was mundane", and enrolled directly in PhD in physics
Statistics and cryptography
Attempts to develop analog electronic instruments suitable for specific lines of research

4. ENIAC: Definition Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
Known as Project PX in the military circles
2.5 meters high, 30.5 meters wide, 0.9 meter deep
Weighs 30 tons
17,468 electronic vacuum
tubes, 70,000 registers
in thirty different units
Programmed by wiring these thirty units in sequence
5,000 additions and 300 multiplications per second

5. ENIAC: Importance ENIAC is the first general purpose computing device
It laid the foundations for the modern electronic computing industry as we know it today
Demonstrated that high-speed, reliable digital computing was possible using the vacuum tubes
Integrated components to come up with an architecture to do general computing
Reliable computer that has less need to tend than its counterparts of the time

6. ENIAC: History Built in Moore School of Engineering, Upenn
Started as an effort of Mauchly due to the fact that he does not have enough resources for his meteorological studies
Driven by his two year undergraduate experience, he took a summer course on electronics in Upenn and he is later appointed
1942: first ideas of ENIAC
He envisioned a true general calculator, rather than just a trajectory table processor
April 1943: Project PX starts, Army supports with $
However, due to his academic duties, he is titled only as a "consultant" to the project
February 14, 1946: ENIAC is announced publicly

7. Relevant people to ENIAC
John Presper Eckert
Lab assistant in the summer electronics course
Very close friends with him
Implementer of the physical architecture and circuitry
In other words, he made the machine
Lt. Herman Goldstine
The military contact for the project
John Atasanoff and Clifford Berry
John Von Neumann

8. The other two computer guys
Atasanoff and Berry
John Vincent Atasanoff, in Iowa State university, built an electronic computer with his grad student Clifford Berry
Summer 1941: Mauchly visits Atasanoff to look at the machine
This visit is similar to Steve Jobs' visit to PARC
They both saw that the things in their minds were doable
Atasanoff's ABC is a linear equation solver, still a specialized machine
Von Neumann
A mathematician from Princeton, who was interested in the EDVAC, the stored program version of ENIAC
First one to produce a report outlining the details of EDVAC, thus the first one to present the idea to the scientific world
His studies influenced the work at Los Alamos on nuclear weapons
Today, he is known as the father of the de facto architecture for computers

9. After ENIAC
1946: Eckert and Mauchly left Upenn due to patent issues, and founded Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation
They started to work on BINAC, later UNIVAC, the next version of ENIAC
2.25 MHz, serial computation, strong input output, significantly faster than ENIAC
US Census Bureau bought the first machine, 45 produced later
Remington Rand bought the company in 1950
He was not able to bring up his project as an independent product
It was a war project at the beginning
Remington Rand (now Unisys) was a corporate place, marketing and development teams took over
But he saw the need of consultancy for digital computing and founded Mauchly Associates in 1959.

10. Did he do it? Did he do it? A question asked for any invention…
Back at that time, the inventors
were attributed with the ideas
The implementation mattered,
and the theory was neglected
People thought that new ideas
came from implementations,
not previous ideas or theories
So, Mauchly was not attributed as the inventor, but had to share it with his colleague, Eckert.

11. Conclusion Mauchly still remains one of the known inventors of ENIAC.
He primarily built the idea, and Eckert primarily built the machine.
They undoubtedly built upon others ideas, just the same was as their ideas were later built upon.
Mauchly also saw the application area of his computer, and pursued the opportunity by setting up a consultancy firm.
He was a successful inventor, for he knew to hold on to his idea and brought it to life.

12. References