Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History [Hardcover]

Alice Rowe Burks (Author), Douglas R. Hofstadter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2003

In 1973, Federal District Judge Earl R Larson issued a ruling in a patent case that was to have profound and long-lasting implications for the dawning computer revolution. With meticulous research, Alice Rowe Burks examines both the trial and its aftermath, presenting telling evidence in convincing and absorbing fashion, and leaving no doubt about the actual originator of what has been called the greatest invention of the 20th century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1941, physicist John Mauchly visited his colleague John Atanasoff at Iowa State University for a few days, during which they discussed the computer Atanasoff was working on, later called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). Within five years, Mauchly would be celebrated as one of the men responsible for the ENIAC, often referred to as the first computer. Thirty years later, what happened during that visit would become the core of a lengthy patent case and grist for countless speculative articles. Was the ENIAC based on the ABC? In 1973, Judge Earl L. Larson ruled in Atanasoff's favor, effectively declaring him the inventor of the computer as we know it. Among aficionados of the history of computing, there's widespread feeling that Larson blew the call, and it is this perception that Burks is intent on demolishing. Exhaustively citing the trial transcript as well as the conflicted reaction of the computing community, the author amply demonstrates Atanasoff's credibility and Mauchly's evasiveness about that meeting. She also persuasively demonstrates the manifold leap forward the ABC represented. In a way, Burks's account is undermined by the sheer strength of her case: most readers will be entirely convinced after only a couple of chapters. However, this thorough treatment of an important subject is invaluable. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

John V. Atanasoff invented the computer, argued Burks in a previous book, The First Electronic Computer (1989). His competitors for that distinction are John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, makers in 1946 of the famous Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, and belief in whose claim is widespread thanks to popular works such as Scott McCartney's ENIAC (1999). In addition, Smithsonian exhibitions and PBS programs on the history of the computer have irked Burks as slighting Atanasoff's work, so here she rolls out a new brief. It will unquestionably put off anyone only casually interested in the dispute; yet for the hard core who are as committed to the subject as Burks, her information is a fount of reproof to the ENIACs. The matter was litigated in the early 1970s, the case turning on what exactly Mauchly took away from a 1941 visit to Atanasoff and his rudimentary but pioneering electronic digital calculating machine. With immense and often esoteric detail, Burks energetically upholds the pro-Atanasoff cause. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 415 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591020344
• ISBN-13: 978-1591020349
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #60 in Books > Law > Perspectives on Law > Science & Technology
  • #67 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Digital Law

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arthur Burks responds to the second Bartik review, January 26, 2004

By 

Arthur W. Burks (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History (Hardcover)

Arthur Burks responds to the second Bartik review

This is a response to Jean Bartik's second Customer Review of my wife Alice's new book, Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History. I have chosen to write at this time because, in both this and Jean's earlier review (to which Alice responded), I am the object of a major charge impugning my integrity.

Jean Bartik's second review has the challenging title, "Answer this." It starts by (again) questioning Judge Larson's impartiality in the ENIAC patent trial: "Why," it asks, "did he have Honeywell's main consultant, Paul Winsor, as the court computer expert?" The answer is that Winsor did not serve as a court computer expert, but was an expert witness for plaintiff Honeywell. I have consulted Charles Call, a chief attorney for the Honeywell side, and he assures me that such was the case. He explained that there are two kinds of witnesses at trial, as called by each of the two opposing sides. Fact witnesses testify about their own roles and experiences relevant to trial issues. Expert witnesses interpret evidence in accord with their expertise. There is nothing improper, or even dubious, in hearing from witnesses on either side of a dispute, whether fact or expert, in a system that encompasses direct examination, cross-examination, re-direct, and re-cross. Paul Winsor was subjected to examination by both Honeywell and defendant Sperry Rand attorneys.

Prior to the trial, Judge Larson, to his credit, did have tutoring on the technical aspects of the case he was about to try, but neither Winsor nor any other expert witness served in that capacity. As to Larson's conduct of the trial, the official transcript reveals a highly competent and attentive judge who was equally strict with both the Honeywell and the Sperry Rand attorneys during their examination of witnesses and presentation of evidence. His decision in the case is a meticulously drawn document that addresses every concern of those attorneys, complete with cross references sustaining the consistency of his findings. The fact that Sperry Rand chose not to appeal the decision, in a case on which so many millions of dollars rode, is testament to the merit of that decision.

Now, to Jean Bartik's charge against me. As in her first review, she accuses me of having threatened to blackmail John Mauchly into adding my name to the ENIAC patent, except that the earlier review had it the patent application. The source of this allegation is now revealed to be Mauchly's widow, Kay Mauchly (Antonelli), and the alleged threat is that I would testify in the ENIAC patent trial for Honeywell if Mauchly did not agree to add my name, but for Sperry Rand (here called Univac) if he did agree. I herewith declare emphatically that I never made such a threat, to Mauchly or anyone else, at the 1967 ACM meeting or anywhere else. Moreover, prior to the trial and at Mauchly's request, I signed affidavits giving facts about progress in the design of the ENIAC that the Sperry attorneys thought would help their case for the Eckert-Mauchly patent.

Jean also claims that "John Mauchly testified at the trial that Burks had tried to bribe/blackmail him for his testimony." I have a complete copy of Mauchly's trial testimony, which Alice and I both studied while writing our 1988 book, and which we have now reviewed again. We find no such testimony by Mauchly, but rather his repeated acknowledgment that yes, Burks (among others) did make substantial contributions to the ENIAC. (This is a case where it would have helped to have the page number of Mauchly's testimony where he is alleged to have made this charge against me.)

Regarding Jean's question on the ultimate utility of John Atanasoff's computer, as distinct from the many basic principles it successfully embodied, Alice's book addresses all of the arguments, pro and con, about the ABC's final state. Jean's further statement that the ABC "was actually `built' for the trial" seems to be yet another inexplicable contention that no such machine was actually constructed. Her "understanding that when Atanasoff left to go to NOL, the University threw whatever he had built in the basement out in the trash" is also erroneous. Atanasoff left for his wartime assignment to the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in 1942, and Iowa State safeguarded his computer in that basement hallway of the Physics Building for six years before dismantling it. Notably, basic parts from the memory and the arithmetic unit were preserved and were later turned over to the Smithsonian Institution, together with photographs.

I will close by saying that I am sorry my relationship with Jean Bartik has come to this obviously angry and bitter end. Like Jean, both Alice and I take no pleasure in this exercise. And we fervently hope that these unfounded protestations will cease. Alice's book on this early era of electronic computing is fully documented. Any further "reviews" should include their own documentation-some sustainable evidence-and should refrain from ad hominem attacks and idle speculation on motives. Both of us have written on this very important subject, not out of "sanctimonious viciousness," but out of concern for the preservation of an accurate history.

Arthur W. Burks, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Author responds to Bartik review, January 10, 2004

By 

Arthur W. Burks (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History (Hardcover)

As the author of Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle that Changed Computing History, I wish to defend my book against claims made by Jean J. Bartik in her Customer Review of it. The most troubling is her claim that my husband, Arthur W. Burks,"tried to blackmail Mauchly into putting his name on the ENIAC patent application and failed." This is a terribly serious charge, with no foundation whatever in fact. After the two-accumulator model test of 1944, which convinced the Moore School team that the ENIAC would very probably work as planned, Pres Eckert circulated a letter asking all team members except himself and Mauchly to declare their own inventive contributions, if any, for patent purposes. Arthur did not at that time think he had any such rights, and he signed a statement to that effect. Indeed, he had the highest respect for both Pres Eckert and John Mauchly, and he continued to regard them as the sole inventors of the ENIAC for another twenty or so years. My book clearly bears out these circumstances.

A second groundless claim is Bartik's assertion that John Atanasoff's ABC "was never built," and that Atanasoff "never built any computer." My book has photos of the ABC in its various stages, including its final state in 1942, together with photos of components and circuit diagrams from Atanasoff's detailed description of 1940. In our earlier book, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story, Arthur and I needed some sixty-five pages to describe the ABC and its functioning.

A third disturbing aspect of Bartik's review is her attack on Judge Earl Larson for his conduct of the ENIAC patent trial. My book establishes, not only that the Atanasoff-Berry Computer preceded the ENIAC and that inventive features of it were used in the ENIAC (and even more so in the EDVAC), but also that Judge Larson conducted a fair and impartial trial in finding for the ABC's priority and the ENIAC's derivation from it. I quote the courtroom exchanges extensively, and there is simply no instance of the judge's treating Mauchly "shabbily."

One can only ask that Bartik cite her sources and supply quotations for these and the many other claims she has marshaled to discredit my book.

Alice Rowe Burks, Ann Arbor, Michigan

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meticulous computer history, January 7, 2004

By 

Richard Borst (Gettysburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History (Hardcover)

Alice Burks has written a detailed and comprehensive account of the historic trial that presented the true origins of the electronic digital computer. Her book contains a fascinating depth of detail, and should satisfy anyone's curiosity as to why the computer is now in the public domain. This is must reading for anyone interested in computer history. She is a meticulous scholar. I knew Dr. Atanasoff, and was present at a few
of the events depicted in her book, and I can attest to her accurate portrayal of them.
For further information, I highly recommend "Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer", by Clark Mollenhoff.