ENIAC
The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer

This book is great. What a fantastic idea to spend the whole focus of a book on the invention of Eniac. I loved every delicious minute of the invention process, court battles, politics, and personal battles surrounding the development of Eniac. When I was very little, my father took me to UPenn to s......more

An interesting read on the early history of the computer. The main flaw as I see it is that the story of ENIAC is largely outlined in the first third of the book. The rest of the slender tome goes on to detail the extended battles over patent rights. Plenty of print is spent on the creators' battles......more

The story of Eniac is a remarkable tale of inspiration, genius, hard work, and triumph, followed by some rather sordid attempts by people on the periphery to claim credit for it. John Mauchley and Presper Eckert were two brilliant men thrown together by the exigencies of World War II and the Army’s......more

I have read a number of books about the history of computers -- Babbage, Turing, Gates, Jobs and so on. I knew a bit about the work of Aitken at Harvard. And I had heard of Eniac and Univac, but knew zero about their history, and I had never heard of Eckert and Mauchly. In most ways, this is just an......more

I really enjoy reading books about the history of technology, and this audio book was particularly fascinating. World War II created a demand for lots of number crunching, especially for the development of artillery tables. Human computers — hence the origin of the word for the hardware we all use tod......more