Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!thorin!unc!omondi
From: omondi@unc.cs.unc.edu (Amos Omondi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: Clippinger-modified ENIAC and June 48 Manchester Mark I (was: Info...)
Message-ID: <3255@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 88 20:20:36 GMT
References: <198@marque.mu.edu>  
Sender: news@thorin.cs.unc.edu
Lines: 61

In article , webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes:
> In article <1496@its63b.ed.ac.uk>, bct@its63b.ed.ac.uk (B Tompsett) writes:
> > In article  webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes:
> > >[....]  Also, it was only plugboard-programmed until
> > >1948 at which time it became the first stored-program computer (although
> > >the store was read-only).  Prior to 1948, it was a parallel computer [....]
> > Correction: the Manchester Mark I was the first stored-program computer. It
> > first ran on 21st June 1948. This week marks the 40th aniversary ...
> 
> PERHAPS.  So far, I have found three references relevant to this question.
> The primary reference is the chronology of the stored-program concept presented
> in Metropolis and Worlton's A Trilogy on Errors in the History of Computing
> [Proc. USA-Japan Conf 1st,, Tokyo, Oct 3-7,1972.]  Here, the chronology is
> laid out as:
>        Manual Program Control: Bell Labs's Complex Calculator (1940)
>        Automatic Program Control: Zuse Z3 (1941) and Harvard Mark I (1944)
>        Internal Program Control:  ENIAC (1946)
>        Storage Program Control: ENIAC (modified-1948)
>        Read-Write Storage Program Control Concept: EDVAC 1945
>        Read-Write Storage Program Control Implemented: BINAC and EDSAC (1949)
> 
> Two questions are raised here: 1) Why no mention of the Manchester Mark I
Good question ...
> and 2) just when in 1948 did the ENIAC get converted.
> 
> On the second point, I have so far seen no references to an exact day
> in 1948 when the ``first ENIAC'' program was run.  Note that the ENIAC
                  ^^^
This is probably understandable since someone appears to have remembered 
these modifications only years after ...

> was already a working computer when it was converted and it is claimed
> that its design specifically invited this conversion (i.e., it was an
> ``easy'' upgrade).  So it may be that the ENIAC ran a stored program
> before or after tha Manchester Mark I did in 1948.  However, in the

How is it that neither Burks, Eckert, nor Mauchly, who surely ought to 
know a thing or two about the ENIAC do not appear to have said anything 
about these modifications or this 1948 date ?  

>         1) precise date for the ENIAC modification
There is little or no information about this, it seems ...

>         2) precise capabilities of the June 48 Manchester Mark I
You can find this in two books by Lavington:
	 -- A History of Manchester Computers.
         -- Early British Computers
as well as papers published by williams and Kilburn in 1948 and later ...

> 

Personally, i think more and more dubious claims appear to be made about the 
ENIAC as time goes on.  One of these is to be found in the book edited by 
Metropolis, et. al: some 34 yrs. after the Williams tube appeared, Eckert 
suddenly remembered that it had been his invention.  I've always wondered 
why he never said anything while Williams and colleagues patented the idea 
in Europe and the U.S. (patents later sold to IBM) and Manc. Univ. and NRDC 
made a bundle from it for years ...


BTW: "BIT by BIT: An Illustrated History of Computers" by S. Augarten is 
a very good read on these historical matters ... ;