What Happened on June 14th

John Mauchly arrived in Iowa City for a visit with John Atanasoff to see his computer. The two computer pioneers later found themselves in a court battle over who would be deemed the legal inventor of the electronic digital computer. Atanasoff emerged from the long and tangled legal battle as the victor after Honeywell Inc. charged Sperry Rand Corp. with enforcement of a fraudulent patent. During the course of the trial, Atanasoff's work emerged, and a judge determined his work had preceded and contributed to development of the ENIAC.

The US Census Bureau dedicated its first UNIVAC computer -- and experienced its first programming error. Once the bugs were fixed, the UNIVAC I became the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. Remington Rand eventually sold 46 machines at more than $1 million each.