7 John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert 7John Mauchly
After completing his education, John William Mauchly
entered the teaching profession, eventually becoming an
associate professor of electrical engineering at the
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. During World
War II Mauchly and Eckert, a graduate engineer, were
asked to devise ways to accelerate the recomputation of
artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army. They accordingly
proposed the construction of a general-purpose digital
computer that would handle data in coded form; by 1946
they completed ENIAC, a huge machine containing more
than 18,000 vacuum tubes. ENIAC was first used by the
U.S. Army at its Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in
1947 for ballistics tests.
The following year Mauchly and Eckert formed a
computer-manufacturing firm, and in 1949 they announced
the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC), which used
magnetic tape instead of punched cards. In 1950 the
Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation was acquired by
Remington Rand, Inc. (later Sperry Rand Corporation),
Mauchly becoming director of special projects. The third
computer after BINAC was the Universal Automatic
Computer (UNIVAC I), specially designed to handle
business data. Mauchly continued his work in the com-
puter field, winning many honours. He served as president
(1959 – 65) and chairman of the board (1965– 69) of Mauchly
Associates, Inc., and as president of Dynatrend, Inc.
(1968–80) and of Marketrend, Inc. (1970–80).
J. Presper Eckert
John Presper Eckert, Jr., was educated at the Moore School
of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania,