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Other computing machines of that era solved mathematical problems in one of two ways. Either they estimated the solutions, using mechanical analog devices like slide rules and differential gears, or they computed them digitally, using the on-off action of slow-moving electromagnetic telephone switches. ENIAC, by contrast, was the first digital computer both to store and to process information with vacuum tubes; as a result, it was able to perform calculations 1,000 times as fast as its electromechanical predecessors. "I was convinced that you could produce great speeds electronically if you put your mind to it," says Eckert. "ENIAC proved that this was the way to go."
Anticipating the gung-ho spirit of their spiritual successors in Silicon Valley, the ENIAC team members worked with demonic intensity. "Eckert was completely devoted to the machine," recalls John Grist Brainerd, the project director. "He would work on it day and night, and worry, worry." Two cots were installed on the ground floor of the Moore School so that the exhausted computer scientists could rest near their cherished machine. "When it finally turned on, everyone was elated," recalls Kay Mauchly. "It seemed like every day was a happy day."
Those happy days soon came to an end. A month after the ENIAC's public unveiling, Eckert and Mauchly resigned rather than turn their patent rights over to the university. Five years later they developed the first commercial computer, UNIVAC 1, but business reversals forced them to sell their fledgling computer company to Remington Rand. The final insult came in 1973. Seeking to invalidate Mauchly and Eckert's patent for "the" electronic computer, Honeywell convinced a federal judge that Mauchly had based his ideas for ENIAC on the work of a computer pioneer named John Atanasoff. The patent was dismissed, and Mauchly and Eckert lost legal claim to one of the great inventions of the 20th century.
ENIAC was decommissioned in 1955, having churned out military and scientific calculations for nearly a decade. Today its cabinet-size modules are scattered among several museums and institu tions. Four remain at the Moore School, gathering dust and cobwebs in a foyer off the old building's main hallway. Nearby, someone has hung a contemporary computer chip and a sign that says it all: "In less than 40 years, advances in microelectronics technology have enabled the digital computer with performance far superior to the ENIAC to be placed on a onequarter-inch piece of silicon."