Born: April 9, 1919
Died: June 3, 1995
John Presper Eckert was born as the only son of a real estate developer. He was christened by
Russel H. Conwell, an
northern baptist minister. He grew up in the Germantown section of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the
Penn Charter School in Germantown, he deveolped a reputation for being a math wiz and electronic genius because "he was always tinkering with radios adn other electronic devices".
Eckert attended the
University of Pennsylvania, where he received both a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering, in 1941 and 1943 respectively. He received an honorary D.Sc. from the same university in 1964.
He and his wife, Judith, had four children. They lived in
Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.
J. Presper Eckert is best known for his collaboration with
John William Mauchly on developing the
ENIAC(
Electronic
Integrator and
Computer). Mauchly was a student of Eckhert when he was teaching at the
Moore School of Elecrical Engeneering.
Eckert and
Mauchly started up the Electronic Control Company. They built the
Binary Automatic Computer (
BINAC) after recieving an order for it from the
Northrop Aircraft Company. The main advance in the BNAIC was that data was stored on magnetic tape instead of punch cards.
After the Electronic Control Company became the
Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, they recieved an order from the
National Bureau of Standards to buld the
Universal
Automatic
Computer. The
UNIVAC was another major advance because it could handle both numerical and alphabetical information with equal success.
Eckert took out patents on 85 inventions. In his lifetime, he recieved many awards, including the
Harry M. Goode Memorial Award "For his pioneering contributions to automatic computing by participating in the design and construction of the ENIAC, the world's first all-electronic computer, and of the BINAC and the UNIVAC, and for his continuing work in the design of electronic computing systems." Eckert was also awarded the
US National Medal of Science. He was elected to the National Academy of Engeneering.
Eckert died from complications relating to
Leukaemia.
Timeline
1919 - born in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1937 - graduated from the William Penn Carter Ccholl in Germanstown
1941 - graduated form the
Moore School of Electrical Engeneering at the
University of Pennsylvania and accepted a teaching position there
1946 - left the Moore School to start up the Electronic Control Company.
???? - the Electronic Control Company became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation
1950 - the Remington Rand Corporation took over the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation; Eckert stayed on as an executive of the new company
1948 to 1966 - took out patents on 85 inventions
1966 - recieved the
Harry M. Goode Memorial Award
1967 - elected to the
National Academy of Engeneering
1969 - awarded the
US National Medal of Science
1980 - recieved the IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award
1989 - retired
1995 - died in
Bryn Mawr, PA
sources
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Eckert_John.html
http://www.wellesley.edu/CS/courses/CS110/History/PresperEckert.html
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bleniac.htm
http://books.nap.edu/books/0309084571/html/71.html
http://www.luckbealady.com/eckertproject/childhood.htm