The ENIAC I

         In 1946, the ENIAC I (Electrical Numerical Intergrator And Calculator) was developed by John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert, thier research was sponsored by the U.S. military who needed a calculating device for writing artillery firing tables (settings used for different weapons under varied conditions for target accuracy). The Ballistics Research Laboratory, or BSL (the branch of the military responsible for calculating the tables), heard about the research John Mauchly was doing at the University of Pennsylvannia's Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Mauchly had previously created several calculating machines some with small electric motors inside, and he had begun designing (1942) a better calculating machine based on the work os John Atanasoff which would use vaccum tubes to speed up calculations.

1943- On May 31 the military commission on the new computer began with Mauchly being the chief consultant and Eckert being the chief engineer. When Mauchly met it Eckert, Eckert was a grad student at Moore School in 1943. It took 18 months and $500,000 tax dollars for the team to build the ENIAC, but by then the war was over. Even though the war was over the ENIAC still found work doing military calculations for a design of a hydrogen bomb, weather predidction, cosmic-ray studies, thermal ignition, random-number studies, and wind-tunnel design.

1946- Eckert and Mauchly started the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Coporation, and in 1949, their company launched BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer) which used magnetic tape to store data.

1948- Several modifications were made to the ENIAC by Dr. JOhn Von Neumann. He suggested that code selection be made by means of switches so pluggable cable connections could remain fixed, and he added a converter code to enable serial operation (the ENIAC had performed arithmetic and transfer operations concurrently which caused programming difficulties.)

1950- The Remington Rand Corporation bought the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and changed the to the Univac Division of Remingtion Rand, their research resulted in the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), an important forerunner of today's computers.

1955- Remington Rand merged with the Sperry Corporation and formed Sperry Rand. Eckert remained with the company, as an executive, and continued with the company, as it later merged with the Burroughs Corportaion to become Unisys. At 11:45, October 2, the power was finally shut-off, and the ENIAC was retired.

1980- Eckert and Mauchly both recieved the IEEE Computer Society Pioneed Award.