Scott McCartney

Inventions are invariably a tricky business. With very few exceptions, not many things sprang forth fully-formed from the minds of one (or two, or whatever) people. Even Isaac Newton reminded people of the ideas of those who came before him, when discussing his genius. This is not to diminish those inventors, but to point out that Ford didn't invent the automobile, Edison didn't invent the lightbulb, and if Bell was the first to crank out a telephone, it was by maybe a month. Tops.

The computer is no different. A number of different people were working in the space of electronic calculating machines, to various degrees of "electronic" and "actually having it work." The two main inventors of the ENIAC machine, Mauchley and Eckert, have been (in the author's view — I haven't read around enough to make a judgment, though Wikipedia backs him up) relegated both in terms of their invention itself (pre-empted by a "digital computer" called the ABC that could only do one operation and, by the way, never actually worked) as well as their role in it, as various collaborators and hangers-on strove to take the credit.

McCartney goes in for a deep dive, sourcing journals, interviews and various papers to restore the Digital Dyad (terrible name for a superhero team) to their rightful place in history. He traces them from their nerdy, tinkering roots through the creation of the ENIAC (and its voluminous red tape) through to the (understandably slightly bitter) ends of their lives. Eckert, for one, always hoped that history would prove to be a more fair arbiter of their role in computing history; this book is a good step in that direction.… (meer)

I'm amazed at the continuity of geek culture: how similar the early days of EDVAC and UNIVAC were to the the dot com culture of hyperkinetic geeks working around the clock and fluffing business plans right and left.

I loved the description of Eckert perched precariously on a chair back interviewing some fellow for seven hours, inspired by the candidate's past projects to riff on about his own ideas. Eckert especially liked people with technical hobbies, since he supposed they would be most amenable to working on technical projects for his company around the clock.… (meer)

This work is about the world's first programmable, digital computer. It is a lively account about computer pioneers. The work deals more with the personalities in the foibles of computing invention along with the squabbles, both individual and legal, about its creation. As brilliant and innovative as the computer inventors were they lost out completely in the legal sphere and they turned out to be poor businessman as well. No doubt these difficulties have diminished the important role that the Philadelphia region played in the invention of the digital computer.

In the beginning of the volume they do a quick survey of early computing efforts and I think the text would have been supplemented well with some illustrations. Thereafter in the book there are pictures of important computer inventors and the machines themselves which are adequate.… (meer)