Editing J. Presper Eckert

{{short description|American electrical engineer and computer pioneer (1919–1995)}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = J. Presper Eckert
| image              = File:ARL ENIAC 05 (cropped) - John Presper Eckert.png
| image_size         = 225px
| caption            = J. Presper Eckert
| birth_name         = John Adam Presper Eckert Jr.
| birth_date         = April 9, 1919
| birth_place        = [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], US
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1995|6|3|1919|4|9}}
| death_place        = [[Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania|Bryn Mawr]], Pennsylvania, US
| alma_mater         = [[University of Pennsylvania]]
| occupation         = [[electrical engineering|Electrical engineer]]
| employer           = 
| known_for          = [[ENIAC]] [[UNIVAC I]]
| other_names        = "Pres"<ref name=IEEE>{{cite web |url=https://www.computer.org/profiles/presper-eckert |title=J. Presper Eckert |publisher=[[IEEE Computer Society]]}}</ref>
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| awards             = [[Harry H. Goode Memorial Award]] <small>(1966)</small><br>[[National Medal of Science]] <small>(1968)</small><br>[[Harold Pender Award]] <small>(1973)</small><br>[[IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award]] {{small|(1978)}}<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ieee.org/documents/piore_rl.pdf |title=IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award Recipients |publisher=[[IEEE]] |accessdate=March 20, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124232834/http://ieee.org/documents/piore_rl.pdf |archive-date=November 24, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
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[[File:UNIVAC 1 demo.jpg|thumb|275px| J. Presper Eckert (center), co-designer of the UNIVAC, and Harold Sweeny of the [[US Census Bureau]] at the console of the UNIVAC, with [[Walter Cronkite]] (r.) on [[CBS]] TV, during [[1952 United States presidential election|Presidential election night, 1952]]]]
'''John Adam Presper''' "'''Pres'''" '''Eckert Jr.''' (April 9, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was an American [[electrical engineering|electrical engineer]] and [[computer pioneer]]. With [[John Mauchly]], he designed the first general-purpose electronic digital computer ([[ENIAC]]), presented the first course in computing topics (the [[Moore School Lectures]]), founded the [[Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation]], and designed the first commercial computer in the U.S., the [[UNIVAC I|UNIVAC]], which incorporated Eckert's invention of the mercury [[delay-line memory]].

==Education==
Eckert was born in [[Philadelphia]] to Ethel M. Hallowell, who came from an old Philadelphia [[Quakers|Quaker]] family, and John Eckert, a wealthy real estate developer of [[Swiss German people|Swiss German]] and [[Alsace|Alsatian]] descent.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Eckstein |first=Peter Charles |date=February 1996 |title=J. Presper Eckert |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3330528_J_Presper_Eckert |journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=25-26 |via=ResearchGate}}</ref> He was raised in a large house in Philadelphia's [[Germantown, Philadelphia|Germantown]] section. During elementary school, he was driven by chauffeur to [[William Penn Charter School]], and in high school joined the Engineer's Club of Philadelphia and spent afternoons at the electronics laboratory of television inventor [[Philo Farnsworth]] in [[Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia|Chestnut Hill]]. He placed second in the country on the math portion of the [[College Board]] examination.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/eniac00scot/page/39|title=ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer|last=McCartney|first=Scott|publisher=Walker and Company|year=1999|isbn=0-8027-1348-3|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/eniac00scot/page/39 39–41]|lccn=98054845}}</ref>

Eckert initially enrolled in the [[University of Pennsylvania]]'s [[Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania|Wharton School]] to study business at the encouragement of his parents, but in 1937 transferred to Penn's [[Moore School of Electrical Engineering]]. In 1940, at age 21, Eckert applied for his first patent, "Light Modulating Method and Apparatus".<ref>{{Cite patent|country=US|number=2283545|title=Light Modulating Method and Apparatus|status=|pubdate=|fdate=July 20, 1940|gdate=May 19, 1942|invent1=Eckert|inventor1-first=John Presper Jr. |url=https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/37/2e/42/fe7582a3fbec7f/US2283545.pdf}}</ref> At the Moore School, Eckert participated in research on [[radar]] timing, made improvements to the speed and precision of the Moore School's [[differential analyzer]], and in 1941 assisted in teaching a summer course in electronics under the [[Engineering, Science, and Management War Training]] (ESMWT) offered through the Moore School by the [[United States Department of War]].

==Development of ENIAC==
John Mauchly, then chairman of the physics department of nearby [[Ursinus College]], was a student in the summer electronics course, and the following fall secured a teaching position at the Moore School. Mauchly's proposal for building an electronic digital computer using [[vacuum tube]]s, many times faster and more accurate than the differential analyzer for computing [[ballistics]] tables for [[artillery]], caught the interest of the Moore School's Army liaison, Lieutenant [[Herman Goldstine]], and on April 9, 1943, was formally presented in a meeting at [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]] to director Colonel [[Leslie Earl Simon|Leslie Simon]], [[Oswald Veblen]], and others. A contract was awarded for Moore School's construction of the proposed computing machine, which would be named [[ENIAC]], and Eckert was made the project's chief engineer. ENIAC was completed in late 1945 and was unveiled to the public in February 1946.

==Entrepreneurship==
Both Eckert and Mauchly left the Moore School in March 1946 over a dispute involving assignment of claims on intellectual property developed at the university. In that year, the University of Pennsylvania adopted a new patent policy to protect the intellectual purity of the research it sponsored, which would have required Eckert and Mauchly to assign all their patents to the university had they stayed beyond March.{{Citation needed|reason=This claim needs a reliable source; Penn state has 2 easily accessible areas discussing their patent policy on their website; "Intellectual Property Policies" and "Patent and Tangible Research Property Policies and Procedures". Both of these resources contain a dated list of revisions and updates, however neither references a change to their patent policy in 1964.|date=February 2025}}

Eckert and Mauchly's agreement with the University of Pennsylvania was that Eckert and Mauchly retained the patent rights to the ENIAC but the university could license it to the government and non-profit organizations. The university wanted to change the agreement so that they would also have commercial rights to the patent.

In the following months, Eckert and Mauchly started up the [[Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation|Electronic Control Company]] which built the Binary Automatic Computer ([[BINAC]]). One of the major advances of this machine, which was used from August 1950, was that data was stored on [[magnetic tape]]. The Electronic Control Company soon became the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, and it received an order from the [[National Bureau of Standards]] to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC). Eckert was awarded the [[The Franklin Institute Awards|Howard N. Potts Medal]] in 1949. In 1950, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation ran into financial troubles and was acquired by [[Remington Rand]] Corporation. The [[UNIVAC I]] was finished on December 21, 1950.

In 1968, "For pioneering and continuing contributions in creating, developing, and improving the high-speed electronic digital computer", Eckert was awarded the [[National Medal of Science]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.jsp?recip_id=115|title=The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details|publisher=[[National Science Foundation]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814091310/https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.jsp?recip_id=115|archive-date=August 14, 2014|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Later career==
Eckert remained with Remington Rand and became an executive within the company. He continued with Remington Rand as it merged with the Burroughs Corporation to become [[Unisys]] in 1986. In 1989, Eckert retired from Unisys but continued to act as a consultant for the company. He died of [[leukemia]] in [[Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania]].<ref>{{cite news |title=J. Presper Eckert, Computer Inventor |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/48036112/j-presper-eckert-1919-1995/ |newspaper=Pottsville Republican |date=June 6, 1995 |page=2 |via = [[Newspapers.com]] |access-date=April 5, 2020}} {{Open access}}</ref>

In 2002, he was inducted, posthumously, into the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.invent.org/inductees/j-presper-eckert|title=J. Presper Eckert|publisher=[[National Inventors Hall of Fame]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190129041512/https://www.invent.org/inductees/j-presper-eckert|archive-date=January 29, 2019|url-status=live}}</ref>

=={{anchor|Eckert architecture}}"Eckert architecture"==
Eckert believed that the widely adopted term "[[von Neumann architecture]]" should properly be known as the "Eckert architecture", since the stored-program concept central to the von Neumann architecture had already been developed at the Moore School by the time von Neumann arrived on the scene in 1944–1945.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Mauchly |first=John W. |date=1979 |title=Amending the ENIAC Story |url=https://sites.google.com/a/opgate.com/eniac/Home/john-mauchly |magazine=[[Datamation]] |volume=25 |issue=11 |access-date=2015-04-18 |archive-date=2016-10-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161008184147/https://sites.google.com/a/opgate.com/eniac/Home/john-mauchly |url-status=dead }}</ref> Eckert's contention that von Neumann improperly took credit for devising the stored-program computer architecture was supported by [[Jean Bartik]], one of the original ENIAC programmers.<ref>{{Cite interview |last=Bartik |first=Jean |subject-link=Jean Bartik |interviewer=Gardner Hendrie |title=Oral History of Jean Bartik |url=https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Bartik_Jean/102658322.05.01.acc.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181024035216/https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Bartik_Jean/102658322.05.01.acc.pdf |archive-date=October 24, 2018 |url-status=live |publisher=[[Computer History Museum]] |date=July 1, 2008}}</ref><ref>"[Goldstine] enthusiastically supported von Neumann's wrongful claims and essentially helped the man hijack the work of Eckert, Mauchly, and the others in the Moore School group." Jennings Bartik, Pioneer Programmer, 518.</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of pioneers in computer science]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
* {{cite book |author-last=Lukoff |author-first=Herman |author-link=Herman Lukoff |title=From Dits to Bits: A personal history of the electronic computer |date=1979 |publisher=Robotics Press |location=Portland, Oregon, Salk middle school |isbn=0-89661-002-0 |lccn=79-90567}}

== External links ==
* [https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107275 Oral history interview with J. Presper Eckert], [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota. Eckert, a co-inventor of the [[ENIAC]], discusses its development at the University of Pennsylvania's [[Moore School]] of Electrical Engineering; describes difficulties in securing patent rights for the ENIAC and the problems posed by the circulation of [[John von Neumann]]'s 1945 [[First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC|First Draft of the Report on EDVAC]], which placed the ENIAC inventions in the public domain. Interview by Nancy Stern, October 28, 1977.
* [https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107216 Oral history interview with Carl Chambers], [[Charles Babbage Institute]], University of Minnesota. Describes the interactions among the ENIAC staff, and focuses on the personalities and working relationships of Mauchly and Eckert.
* [http://www.luckbealady.com/EckertProject/Default.htm A Tribute to Dr. J. Presper Eckert Co-Inventor of ENIAC]. 2000 Daniel F. McGrath Jr.
* [https://www.seas.upenn.edu/about/history-heritage/eniac/ ENIAC museum] at the University of Pennsylvania
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090116081919/http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,108568,00.html?source=NLT_AM&nid=108568 Q&A: A lost interview with ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927194128/http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=%2Farticles%2Fart0645.html%3Fm%3D3 1989 interview of Eckert] by Alexander Randall 5th, published February 23, 2006 on KurzweilAI.net. Includes Eckert's reflections on the creation of ENIAC.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060422022154/http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/eckert.htm Interview with Eckert] Transcript of a video interview with Eckert by David Allison for the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution on February 2, 1988. An in-depth, technical discussion on the ENIAC, including the thought process behind the design.

{{Unisys}}
{{Winners of the National Medal of Science|engineering}}
{{Timelines of computing}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Eckert, John Presper}}
[[Category:1919 births]]
[[Category:1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:American people of Swiss-German descent]]
[[Category:Burroughs Corporation people]]
[[Category:Computer designers]]
[[Category:Computer hardware engineers]]
[[Category:Deaths from leukemia in Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:Howard N. Potts Medal recipients]]
[[Category:National Medal of Science laureates]]
[[Category:Scientists from Philadelphia]]
[[Category:University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni]]
[[Category:William Penn Charter School alumni]]
[[Category:Unisys]]