Rating: 
Summary: Very simplistic but a good intro for the general reader
Review: In a style imitative of the two deservedly popular books LONGITUDE and FERMAT"S ENIGMA, Scott McCartney attempts to make the story of the world's first general purpose computer accessible to a wide, non-scientific audience. In trying to strike a balance between readability and completeness, he leans heavily toward the former, which will disappoint those looking for some real meat while possibly shortchanging even the casual reader, who might be misled into thinking that this is the whole story. On the other hand, casual readers aren't too likely to pick up anything much weightier on this topic, so maybe it's a good thing. McCartney adds little to the technical story of ENIAC's development. (For that, pick up the splendid THE COMPUTER FROM PASCAL TO VON NEUMANN, by Herman H. Goldstine.) Rather, his main contribution is added insight into the bickering, competition and lawsuits that characterized the birth of the computer industry. Somewhat reminiscent of the birth of television, the greatest commercial rewards went not to the originators but to those who followed and did it better. "Better" does not necessarily imply technical superiority, but has more to do with knowing one's way around the courts and the markets. Perhaps the greatest surprise to those knowledgeable in the history of computing is the author's contention that what we have come to know as "von Neumann architecture" was not invented by that eminent mathematician, but by the heroes of Eniac, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. To learn that von Neumann may have usurped credit for the creativity of others is quite disturbing. (Goldstine's book takes the opposite view. Truth, as it usually is, is probably somewhere in the middle.)
Rating: 
Summary: A simple, yet elegant approach to tell the Eniac's story.
Review: A very easy read, that almost forces you to read the whole thing in one or two sittings. I've always been fascinated with early computing and this book satisfied my curiousity about the ENIAC. I've heard multiple accounts of who invented what, but after finishing this book I feel I know the whole story.
Rating:
Summary: How general purpose digital computing came to be!
Review: An old saying begins by saying that success has many fathers. There are many now who claim to have built digital general purpose computers before ENIAC and I am not qualified to adjudicate their claims. However from all the claims made from all kinds of sources, it appears that no one else is either. Because of the unimaginable effect digital computing has had on the world culture and economy there is just too much emotion, pride, and politics to let anyone's claim to priority stand unchallenged. Even the courts have tortured the facts to invalidate the ENIAC patent in order to avoid an IBM - Sperry monopoly. Those pesky ends justifying questionable means yet one more time. Some of the "computers" claiming priority to ENIAC were actually electro-mechanical calculators, specific purpose (rather than general purpose) devices, or analog rather than digital computing devices. This makes them not what ENIAC was. The British Colossus was indeed a digital computer. But it was used in top-secret code breaking and wasn't publicly known until 1970 and therefore didn't impact the course of development of computing. What does first mean in this case? I wish this book would be read by everyone - especially students. It tells several important stories. First, there is the almost forgotten story of ENIAC and the two men who designed and built her. They were John Mauchly and Pres Eckert. What they did in developing a general purpose digital computer in ENIAC and then EDVAC and finally with UNIVAC, changed the course of computing forever. The story of Mauchly and Eckert should be remembered no matter what the many others claiming to be the fathers of success might claim. The book also tells the tale how technology developed with paper tape, punch cards, magnetic tape, digital memory, calculating with gears versus vacuum tubes, and all that other early technical history that so many of us find fascinating. I mean, contemplating how 1,800 square feet of computing power with 17,000 tubes improved calculating speeds by over 300 times is just cool to contemplate. Now, the ENIAC's power is just a spec on a present day CPU made of silicon. Then there is the cautionary tale of how these men really had success slip away from them for a variety of reasons. There is much to learn here. Some of it was personal jealousy by people you will meet reading the book. Some of it was sheer politics including institutions like Penn and RCA that could have been at the forefront of computer science but didn't see the vision early enough. Some of it was a lack of business savvy on the part of Mauchly and Eckert. And sometimes the ball just bounces in funny ways that work against you. Life is funny that way. But history should work through all the facts and the story should draw good and proper lines from what was to what is. Just as others traveled to the Western Hemisphere before Columbus, but his voyages opened the age of exploration and just as others had cars before Ford, but it was he who put the world on wheels, it was Mauchly and Eckert who opened the age of digital computers through ENIAC and this is a great telling of the story. It is a very fast read and very worthwhile.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting; as riveting as the best fiction.
Review: Eniac is exciting; as riveting as the best fiction. What this book shines at is telling the story of people. I felt I really knew the players, felt the politics swirling, and the ache of frustration Mauchle and Eckert must have felt by the time I finished. The author found many rare photographs I've never seen in print before. My mind is changed about the history of the first computer. After checking the author's facts against what I thought I knew, I discovered that, as Will Rogers said, "It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble, it's what we do know that 'taint so." McCartney's book is an important work of scholarship, not yet another candy-coated trip down core memory lane. Bottom line: Eniac is a book worth reading and worth owning. Read it, visit a library and use the excellent bibliography to check the author's conclusions.
Rating: 
Summary: Huh? The first computer was by Zuse, of course.
Review: Even the title is misleading. Every computer scientist knows that Konrad Zuse built the first working programmable computers between 1935 and 1941. ENIAC came 5 years later and actually was still decimal - not binary like the machines of Zuse and MARK I (1944) and all modern machines. The Colossus computer of Turing and colleagues also predates ENIAC, although it was not programmable like the Zuse machines. I really find it impossible to recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I found ENIAC to be a fascinating story. It reminded me somewhat of some the characters in "A Beautiful Mind" - and, in fact, the books do overlap in their discussion of the post-War icons of scientific academia. For those of us who grew up in the industry on the IBM side of things, ENIAC chronicles another force in computer history - the Sperry-Rand dynasty, which today is manifested as Unisys, now a struggling niche mainframe vendor trying to reinvent itself with an industrial-class Windows box. The latter part of the book focuses on the subterfuge and betrayal visited upon the book's protagonists - Mauchly and Eckert. At first this read like general conspiracy theory stuff, but upon further reflection of my own professional life, where I have seen what some people will do to advance their careers or even qualify for an exam, I realized the story is certainly probable. Von Neumann, Atanasoff, and Brainerd come off as despicable characters, successful in their own right but with reputations forever marred due to their treachery. Mauchly and Eckert's lack of business prowess prevented them from recovering from their detractors' attacks. In the long run, the injustice done to the duo did further the computer industry by opening up competition, although one can argue that IBM - the juggernaut of the industry - should have been the sole focus of the courts rather than Sperry-Rand. The book is a quick-read, well-researched, and well-documented. I was hoping it would have been slightly more technical, but all-in-all a good read.
Rating:
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: 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.
Rating:
Summary: History repeats itself
Review: The tale of a bold project, missed deadlines, stolen ideas, litigation and a disregarded patent. How little has the industry changed. If you are in the IT industry be sure to read this.
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