Eckert, J. Presper, Jr.
b. April 9, 1919, Philadelphia,
Pa., U.S.
d. June 3, 1995, Bryn Mawr, Pa. |
in full JOHN PRESPER ECKERT, JR. , American
engineer and coinventor of the first general-purpose
electronic computer, a digital machine that was
the prototype for most computers in use today.
Eckert was educated at the Moore School of Electrical
Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia (B.S., 1941; M.S., 1943), where he and his
professor, John W. Mauchly, made several valuable
improvements in computing equipment. In 1946 the pair
fulfilled a government contract to build a digital computer,
which they called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Computer). In primitive form, ENIAC contained
virtually all the circuitry used in present-day
high-speed digital computers. It was used by the U.S.
Army for military calculations.
In 1948 Eckert and Mauchly established a computer-manufacturing
firm; a year later, they introduced BINAC (Binary
Automatic Computer), which stored information on
magnetic tape rather than on punched cards. Designed to
handle business data, UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer),
Eckert and Mauchly's third model, found many uses in
commerce and may be said to have started the computer
boom. Between 1948 and 1966 Eckert received 85 patents,
mostly for electronic inventions.
Eckert remained in executive positions at his company
when it was acquired by Remington Rand, Inc., in 1950
and when that firm was, in 1955, merged into the Sperry
Rand Corp. (later Unisys Corp.). Eckert was elected to
the National Academy of Engineering in 1967 and was
awarded the National Medal of Science in 1969.
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