J. Presper Eckert facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
J. Presper Eckert
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J. Presper Eckert (c.), co-designer of the UNIVAC, and Harold Sweeny of the US Census Bureau at the console of the UNIVAC, with Walter Cronkite (r.) on CBS TV, during Presidential election night, 1952
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John Adam Presper Eckert Jr.
April 9, 1919 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US
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| Died | June 3, 1995 (aged 76) Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, US
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| Occupation | Electrical engineer |
| Known for | ENIAC |
| Awards | Harry H. Goode Memorial Award (1966) National Medal of Science (1968) Harold Pender Award (1973) IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award (1978) |
John Adam Presper Eckert Jr. (born April 9, 1919 – died June 3, 1995) was a brilliant American electrical engineer and a true computer pioneer. He worked closely with John Mauchly. Together, they created the ENIAC, which was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. They also taught the first course on computer topics, known as the Moore School Lectures. Later, they started the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. This company designed the first computer sold for business use in the U.S., called the UNIVAC. This amazing machine included Eckert's clever invention, the mercury delay-line memory.
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Early Life and Education
John Presper Eckert Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a successful real estate developer. Presper grew up in a large house in the Germantown area of Philadelphia.
Even as a young student, he showed a strong interest in electronics. He was driven by a chauffeur to the William Penn Charter School. In high school, he joined the Engineer's Club of Philadelphia. He also spent many afternoons at the electronics lab of Philo Farnsworth, who invented television. Eckert was very good at math, scoring among the top students in the country on his college entrance exams.
He first went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School to study business. This was because his parents encouraged him to. But in 1937, he moved to Penn's Moore School of Electrical Engineering. In 1940, when he was just 21, Eckert applied for his first patent. It was for a "Light Modulating Method and Apparatus." At the Moore School, Eckert helped with research on radar timing. He also made the school's differential analyzer faster and more accurate. In 1941, he helped teach an electronics course. This course was part of a special war training program.
Creating the ENIAC Computer
John Mauchly, a physics professor, was a student in that summer electronics course. He later got a teaching job at the Moore School. Mauchly had an idea to build an electronic digital computer. This computer would use vacuum tubes. It would be much faster and more accurate than older machines. Its main purpose was to calculate ballistics tables. These tables helped figure out the paths of artillery shells for the military.
The Army became interested in Mauchly's idea. On April 9, 1943, the plan was officially presented. A contract was given to the Moore School to build this new machine. It was named ENIAC, which stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. Eckert became the chief engineer for the ENIAC project. The ENIAC was finished in late 1945. It was shown to the public in February 1946.
Starting a Computer Company
Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School in March 1946. They had a disagreement about who owned the rights to their inventions. The University of Pennsylvania wanted to own all patents developed there. Eckert and Mauchly believed they should keep the rights to their ENIAC invention.
After leaving, Eckert and Mauchly started their own company. It was first called the Electronic Control Company. They built a computer called the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC). A big step forward with BINAC was that it stored data on magnetic tape. This was a new and important development.
The Electronic Control Company soon changed its name to the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. They received an order to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). In 1949, Eckert received the Howard N. Potts Medal for his work. In 1950, the company faced money problems. It was then bought by the Remington Rand Corporation. The UNIVAC I was completed on December 21, 1950.
In 1968, Eckert received the National Medal of Science. This award recognized his important work in creating, developing, and improving high-speed electronic digital computers.
Later Career and Legacy
Eckert stayed with Remington Rand and became an executive. He continued working there when Remington Rand merged with the Burroughs Corporation in 1986. The new company was called Unisys. Eckert retired from Unisys in 1989 but still worked as a consultant. He passed away from leukemia in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
In 2002, after his death, J. Presper Eckert was added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
The "Eckert Architecture" Idea
Eckert believed that the term "von Neumann architecture" should actually be called the "Eckert architecture." This is because the idea of a "stored-program computer" was developed at the Moore School before John von Neumann joined the team in 1944–1945. Jean Bartik, one of the first ENIAC programmers, agreed with Eckert. She also felt that von Neumann got too much credit for the stored-program computer design.
See also
