Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
Pioneers

John Mauchly

Physicist and Engineer

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American physicist who co-designed ENIAC with J. Presper Eckert, the first general purpose electronic digital computer, and went on to co-design EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I. He and Eckert were principals in the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand case, the 1973 US court ruling on priority for the ENIAC patent.

Facts
Birth Year
1907 1
Birth Date
1907-08-30 1
Death Year
1980 1
Death Date
1980-01-08 1
Nationality
American 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Binary Search, Concepts

John Mauchly described the basic idea of binary search in a 1946 lecture, already the cited source for this concept's own origin-year fact.

Held Differently

Von Neumann Architecture, Concepts

Why this is disputed. Eckert and Mauchly had essentially finished designing a stored-program computer before discussing the ideas with von Neumann; the architecture's naming credits him alone despite this.

Invented

ENIAC, Systems
UNIVAC I, Systems

John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, ENIAC's designers, founded the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and went on to design UNIVAC I, the first commercially produced computer in the United States.

Sources
1. Wikipedia: John Mauchly
Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction
Quote, Introduction
was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer made in the United States.
View the Source
1. Wikipedia: John Mauchly
Wikimedia FoundationInfobox
Quote, Infobox
Born August 30, 1907, Cincinnati, Ohio, US; died January 8, 1980, Ambler, Pennsylvania, US.
View the Source
1. Wikipedia: John Mauchly
Wikimedia FoundationInvented: UNIVAC IView the Source
Wikipedia: Binary Search
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Binary SearchView the Source
Wikipedia: Von Neumann architecture
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Von Neumann Architecture, History section
Quote, Associated With: Von Neumann Architecture, History section
Eckert and Mauchly had essentially finished designing a stored program computer before discussing the ideas with von Neumann
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