Making the Case
First draft of a report on the EDVAC
Von Neumann learned about ENIAC from a chance encounter with Herman Goldstine on a railway platform. He created this blueprint for building a better computer.
Making the Case
Eckert and Mauchly realized the shortcomings of rewiring ENIAC for each problem, but urgent wartime work didn’t let them explore the idea of putting programs in memory. Mathematician John von Neumann, who consulted on ENIAC, drafted a report on its successor, laying the conceptual framework for stored-program computers.
Moore School of Electrical Engineering
About 30 researchers attended an 8-week summer lecture course held here in 1946. They heard about the recently declassified ENIAC, general techniques for building computers, and the new idea of storing programs in memory, which no one had yet done.
View Artifact DetailSpreading the Word
ENIAC was declassified at the end of World War II, sparking inquires from engineers around the world. How did it work? How could they build one like it—or better?
The Moore School responded with an eight-week, invitation only lecture series in 1946. Attendees, invigorated by exciting new ideas, became a who’s who of computer pioneers.
