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               John P. Eckert is credited with being a coinventor of the first electronic digital computer. While he was a research associate at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, he collaborated with J.W. Mauchly in designing and constructing the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). Eckert used the basic digital concepts in designing ENIAC which John V. Atanasoff had used earlier in a device he had built in the 1930s. By using these digital concepts, Eckert was able to substitute electronic components for mechanical ones. This change in design made ENIAC about 1,000 times faster than the previous generation of relay computers.

               Eckert and Mauchly decided to build ENIAC when the outbreak of WWII produced a desperate need for computing capability for the military. ENIAC was designed to calculate ballistic trajectory tables for the new weapons systems which were being developed. ENIAC was successful at doing this, and thus was officially put into operation in 1946 and was used for the next 9 years.

               Although ENIAC was a success in its time, it is in no way comparable to the modern PC. ENIAC used 18,000 vacuum tubes, occupied 1,800 sq ft of floor space, and consumed about 180,000 watts of electrical power. It also had punched card input and output. The executable instructions composing a program were embodied in the separate units of ENIAC, which were plugged together to form a route through the machine for the flow of computations. These connections had to be redone for each different problem, as well as presetting function tables and switches. ENIAC did not include modern programming features such as stored, modifiable programming words. Nevertheless, ENIAC was the fastest computer in its time and served the military well.

               In 1946, Eckert left the Moore School of Electrical Engineering and established the Electronic Control Company with John Mauchly, which later was renamed the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. This company is credited with becoming America’s first computer company, in which they embarked on a new project: the development of a general purpose computer system for science, business, and government. In 1948, Eckert began working on the UNIVAC I computer with Mauchly, but because they were short on cash, they sold out to Remington Rand, a large, highly diversified corporation. Now with the help of Rand’s financial resources, Eckert and Mauchly completed their project in 1951.

               UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) used a unique memory system based on binary acoustic signals. It had twin arithmetic units run in parallel for error detection and converted binary information from memory into “words,” each consisting of 12 alphabetic or decimal quantities. Arithmetic was performed on these words at a rate of 2,000 additions or 450 multiplications per second. Internal memory capacity was 1,000 words. This computer was the first commercially available stored-program electronic digital computer, and was used by the Census Bureau in 1951.

               Eckert’s intelligence and ability with computers showed through his many promotions. Throughout his career with Sperry-Rand, which was formerly Remington Rand, Eckert constantly moved up the executive ladder. He became vice president and director of research in 1955, vice president and director of commercial engineering in 1957, vice president and executive assistant to the general manager in 1959, and vice president and technical advisor to the president of Sperry-Rand, UNIVAC division in 1963.

               Furthermore, Eckert’s contributions to the computer industry did not go without its rewards. He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964. Just 5 years later in 1969, Eckert was awarded the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest award for distinguished achievements in science, mathematics, and engineering.

               Throughout his life, John Eckert constantly made improvements on his computers. He had helped create EDVAC and BINAC, two other improvements over his first invention, ENIAC. It’s no wonder that Eckert is listed as the inventor or co-inventor of 87 patents. Without the first steps that Eckert made in the computer world, we probably wouldn’t have half of the technology or efficiency that we do today, since almost everything and every place has some sort of a computer in it.

Works Cited


Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company 1983.

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Computers volume 2, Macmillan Publishing Company 1992.