Beschreibung:

COMPUTER INDUSTRY]. MAUCHLEY, John and J. Presper ECKERT. A superb collection of rare documents relating to the development of the world's first commercial computer. Philadelphia: Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp., 1947-1954. THE BIRTH OF THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY This collection documents the earliest history of the design of the memory system and the programming of the UNIVAC, "the world's first commercially produced electronic digital computer" (Lee). In 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School, John Mauchly (principal consultant) and J. Presper Eckert (principal engineer) completed the ENIAC, the world's first electronic digital computer. That year the two left the Moore School and "formed a partnership for the purpose of designing and marketing a Universal Automatic Computer, called UNIVAC. The machine was intended to be used for a variety of commercial applications. The Census Bureau, with the National Bureau of Standards as its agent, was the first organization to contract for a UNIVAC" (Lee, Computer Pioneers ). On securing that landmark contract, they formed the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1948. Eckert remained behind the scenes as chief engineer while Mauchly became president, focusing on programming and logic design and guiding the enterprise. For three years Eckert-Mauchly developed the UNIVAC, refining the machine and its software. The problems of developing a viable commercial enterprise finally proved insurmountable for the small start-up company. Unable to finance their ambitious venture adequately, Mauchly and Eckert sold the company to Remington Rand in February 1950, and the two continued to work on the UNIVAC. Eventually Remington Rand (later known as Sperry Rand and now Unisys) sold 43 UNIVACs, making this successor to Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation the world's first large-scale computer company. This collection of papers from the dawning of the age of the computer industry documents the development of the hardware and software of the revolutionary UNIVAC. The programming documents were printed primarily for in-house use in extremely small numbers, and very few copies have survived. The patents are likewise extremely rare in the market. For example, only one of these documents (item 4) is found in the Origins of Cyberspace collection, which included many of Eckert's own papers, while another (item 1) was present in that collection only in photocopy form. The collection includes: 1. Memory System. Inventors John W. Mauchly & John Presper Eckert Jr. Patent 2,629,827. Filed Oct. 31, 1947. Granted Feb. 24 1953. 20 pp, 9 plates. This unusually long patent contains a considerable amount of material concerning the nature of computer memory, then in its infancy. It begins, "This invention relates to a memory system, and various elements thereof, the memory system being of a type into which information may be introduced electrically and from which information may be secured electrically, the system being particularly designed for association with other devices into machines for the carrying out of computational or other logical procedures." This is the ORIGINAL PATENT FOR THE FAMOUS MERCURY ACOUSTIC DELAY-LINE MEMORY SYSTEM, "the first device to gain widespread acceptance as a reliable computer memory system. It was used in a number of first-generation computers, including UNIVAC I" ( Origins of Cyberspace 1191, describing a photocopy of this patent, from the Eckert papers-- evidently Eckert did not retain an original). 2. UNIVAC Questions and Answers. [Philadelphia: Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp.], August 3, 1948. 1 p. 4to. Mimeographed typescript, stapled [with following item]. After the military computers ENIAC and EDVAC, both developed by Mauchly and Eckert, the UNIVAC is considered one of the world's first stored program computers, the world's first general-purpose computer, and the first commercial computer. 3. BINAC Questions and Answers. [Philadelphia: Eckert-Mauchly Computer C