Eckert, from Pennsylvania, worked with John Mauchly to build the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, called ENIAC. ENIAC stood for Electronic Integrator and Computer. ENIAC was completed after World War II, but it was designed during the war to figure out trajectories for bombs and shells.

After the war, ENIAC was used in top-secret projects such as the development of nuclear weapons. ENIAC was quite a bit larger than most modern computers, about 7 feet high and 65 feet long (2.5 X 24 meters). It was 1,000 times faster than the processors that came before it.

Following ENIAC, Eckert and Mauchly developed UNIVAC, the Universal Automatic Computer, which was the first computer that people could buy in the United States.

More about John Presper Eckert Jr.

Links to other Websites:

• Biography of John Presper Eckert Jr., University of St. Andrews, Scotland


• John Presper Eckert Jr. and ENIAC, from maxmon.com