Rating: 
Summary: This book has an essential flaw
Review: Message to the managers: in my previous review I erroneously gave 5 stars (I did not notice this default setting). I'd like to give 2 stars instead. Please revise my review accordingly! Thanks a lot.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for both computer jocks and noncomputer jocks
Review: My husband (the computer jock) just loved this book for its technical information. And I loved it for its not-so-technical information. It provided a window into a world rarely seen by outsiders. I would highly recommend it!
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Summary: First Computer?
Review: Ok, heres the deal. Calling ENIAC the first digital computer is not a fair statement. You could call the Attonasoff-Beffy Computer(ABC) the fist digital computer or Colossus the first digital computer, but not ENIAC. The fist computer in a modern sense was the Manchester Mark 1, by saying modern I mean a computer that can store its program. By the way I have not read this book.
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Summary: ENIAC - S. McCartney does a fine job
Review: Scott McCartney has written an excellent counterbalance to the current literature on the invention of the computer. It is a fine contrast to Herman Goldstine's book on the subject. Here, we see a johnny-come-lately view of the great mathematician John von Neumann, a man whose profound insight into the future value of an all-electronic calculating machine gives him the shared title of inventor of computer science (along with A. Turing), not the computer. This book leaves us no doubt, it was Eckert and Mauchly's creation, a plum that many others wanted credit for once it matured. The general purpose electronic computer is fittingly the invention of an electrical engineer (Eckert) and a visionary physicist (Mauchly). This is also a good resource on the entry by women into the world of computers. I was only disappointed that McCartney did not include a bit more of the technical, engineering details about ENIAC, and its comparison to the COLOSSUS, perhaps in an appendix.
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Summary: Glad to See the Story Being Told. Fascinating Reading!
Review: Scott's book on the ENIAC is a nice addition to any computer history reference library. His account gives us some of the personal side of the struggles involved in bringing innovation and change into the human arena. Many computer history books tell of the bits, bytes and components involved, but far more interesting oftentimes is the human side of the story. Having been a part-time computer historian for over 20 years, I have learned that computer history is often a highly emotional and controversial subject. Everyone has their view of "history" and who was "first" with what technology. Many computer pioneers who lived through the early days do not agree on who or what was first, or sometimes even the sequence of what happened when, so being a writer in this field is extremely challenging. No, ENIAC was not the "first" computer. However, the ENIAC story, and Eckert and Mauchly's role in the evolution of computing (ENIAC, BINAC, UNIVAC, etc.) is a fascinating and valuable saga of blood, sweat and tears, and one that is well worth telling. Others will no doubt relay different views of this aspect of history, but that is what makes history a fascinating subject. It is a mosaic of viewpoints through which we gain various personal perspectives on what actually happened. Scott's book is easy to read and is non-technical enough to be enjoyed by those who like stories of entreprenureship and history itself. There will never be one book that tells the whole story, so expect to read various accounts to get the full flavor of how we got where we are today. From mercury filled tubes to gigabytes on the desktop. Scott, thanks for writing this, and thanks to Eckert and Mauchly for their pioneering work.
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Summary: Finally the true story is debunked!
Review: Strong feelings and misinformation are common on this topic, as you can see by reading some of these "reviews." That is why this book is important, for it gives a popular account of the true side of a story that has been clouded by an earlier popular account by Mollenhoff in which Atanasoff is elevated to "Forgotten Father of the Computer." I don't want to berate the previous reviewer from Iowa too much, but I have a feeling that haven't read McCartney's book. The Iowa cheerleaders have been spouting this stuff for years, while the great majority of computer historians have already accepted the fact that, in spite of one judge's legal ruling on a patent, Eckert and Mauchly did invent the first electronic computer. Never-the-less, you'll continue to hear people parroting some outright lies due to an effective PR campaign by the proponents of Iowa State. (For example, the terms "general-purpose" and "programmable" can never apply to Atanasoff's machine, which was designed solely for the purpose of solving simultaneous equations.) So anyway, the book is about this controversy. So rather than me supporting it's arguments, I recommend you read it! It's a compelling story, with complex characters, not just good guys and bad guys. I believe that the perspective is accurate and true, for it agrees with the serious academic historians. Despite a few unruly naysayers from Iowa.
Rating:
Summary: Finally the true story is debunked!
Review: Strong feelings and misinformation are common on this topic, as you can see by reading some of these "reviews." That is why this book is important, for it gives a popular account of the true side of a story that has been clouded by an earlier popular account by Mollenhoff in which Atanasoff is elevated to "Forgotten Father of the Computer." I don't want to berate the previous reviewer from Iowa too much, but I have a feeling that haven't read McCartney's book. The Iowa cheerleaders have been spouting this stuff for years, while the great majority of computer historians have already accepted the fact that, in spite of one judge's legal ruling on a patent, Eckert and Mauchly did invent the first electronic computer. Never-the-less, you'll continue to hear people parroting some outright lies due to an effective PR campaign by the proponents of Iowa State. (For example, the terms "general-purpose" and "programmable" can never apply to Atanasoff's machine, which was designed solely for the purpose of solving simultaneous equations.) So anyway, the book is about this controversy. So rather than me supporting it's arguments, I recommend you read it! It's a compelling story, with complex characters, not just good guys and bad guys. I believe that the perspective is accurate and true, for it agrees with the serious academic historians. Despite a few unruly naysayers from Iowa.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not complete
Review: The author apparently has not adequately appreciated that (1) computers were not invented but gradually and continuously evolved since the first: the abacus; and that (2) the following two books should have deserved more attention: (2.1) Herman H.Goldstine: THE COMPUTER FROM PASCAL TO [JOHN] VON NEUMANN (1993); and (2.2) William Aspray: JOHN VON NEUMANN AND THE ORIGINS OF MODERN COMPUTING (1992).
Rating:
Summary: The book has an essential flaw.
Review: The book has at least one essential flaw. The first working, fully programmable general purpose computer was Konrad Zuse's Z3 (Germany, 1941). ENIAC (inspired by Atanasoff's earlier, less general designs) was fully programmable too, but came much later (in 1946). Both Atanasoff (US-American of Bulgarian origin) and Zuse built limited calculators in the 1930s (e.g., 1935-38 Zuse completed the Z1, the first fully mechanical, programmable digital machine, and Atanasoff built electronic devices). But if we include mere calculators among "computers" then neither Zuse nor Atanasoff were first. Non-general purpose devices have been around for a long time (since the days of Leibniz and Pascal). Z3's switches were based on relays instead of tubes like in ENIAC. This is no fundamental difference. There are many ways of implementing a switch. Today we use transistors, of course. The Z3 was destructed in an air raid in 1944. It never got the publicity of ENIAC. Still, 1966 - 1995 Zuse finally received uncountable awards and world-wide appreciation as "Inventor of the Computer."
Rating:
Summary: Good reading and good history
Review: The names ENIAC, Mauchley, Eckert and von Neumann are instantly recognizable to anyone who's studied computer science. ENIAC was the first big computer, Mauchley and Eckert were the designers of Eniac, and von Neumann was responsible for the basic architechture of compuers that we use today. That's the general history as it';s been taught for the last 30 or 40 years, but the actual story is a good deal more complicated, as it turns out. Scott McCartney has done a first rate job of telling the history of the people involved, with insightful profiles of the principals involved as well as a detailed history of the origins of ENIAC, its sucessors EDVAC and UNIVAC and the genesis of the computer industry. The portrayal of von Neumann's role in particular is very much at odds with the generally told story, but documented well enough as to be convincing. Much of the credit given von Neumann for the "von Neumann architecture" is due to a report he wrote after reviewing the design of the completed ENIAC which came out under his name, snubbing the actual designers. McCartney isn't at his best when it comes to technical matters- he states, for example, that digital computers are more accurate than analog computers, "which can only give an approximate answer", when the opposite is in fact true. He also gets a bit of the earlier history wrong: In an early section he notes that the failure of Babbage's creations were due to the inability of the technology of the time to produce parts of suufficient precision- also not true, as a project completed a few years previous has shown. But when he has the actual words of the main characters to go by be he builds a very convincing narrative. Overall this is a very good book, and one I would strongly recommend to anyone interested in the history of technology, or in the origins of computing.
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