🎉 New to MixCache.com? Sign up now and get $5.00 FREE CREDIT towards any ebook purchase!* Create Account →

The Stored-Program Computer Debate: von Neumann vs. Eckert and Mauchly
A Teaching Text with Exercises on Early Computer Architecture

Book Details
About this book:

The Stored-Program Computer Debate: von Neumann vs. Eckert and Mauchly Who really invented the architecture that powers every modern device? The *First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC* bore only John von Neumann’s name, yet it crystallized years of breakthrough engineering by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the Moore School. *The Stored-Program Computer Debate* cuts through decades of mythology to reconstruct the explosive collision of mathematical theory and wartime engineering that birthed the digital age. From the mechanical gears of Babbage and the relay logic of Zuse to the mercury delay lines that made high-speed memory possible, this book traces the technical lineage that made the stored-program concept inevitable—and the human conflict that made its attribution controversial.

Designed as a rigorous teaching text, this volume moves beyond passive narrative to put the evidence in your hands. You will dissect the logical schemata of the *First Draft*, compare the architectural realities of the EDVAC and IAS machines, and analyze the courtroom transcripts of *Honeywell v. Sperry Rand* where history was litigated under oath. Structured exercises guide you through primary source memos, patent filings, and the shifting historiography of the 1950s to the present, equipping you to evaluate the roles of von Neumann’s synthesis, Eckert’s hardware genius, and Mauchly’s systems vision on their own merits.

Whether you are a computer scientist seeking the structural roots of your discipline, a historian of technology navigating the sociology of credit, or a student learning to read technical history critically, this book offers the definitive framework for understanding computing’s most consequential priority dispute. It reveals how the unification of data and instruction in a single address space was not a single "eureka" moment, but a hard-won convergence of physics, logic, and institutional power. Engage with the blueprints, the testimony, and the arguments—and decide for yourself how the modern world was architected.

Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 The Pre-Electronic Era: Calculating Engines and Early Automatic Control
  • Chapter 2 The Moore School of Electrical Engineering and the Wartime Context
  • Chapter 3 The ENIAC Project: Architecture, Capabilities, and Programming via Plugboards
  • Chapter 4 Limitations of ENIAC: The Need for High-Speed Reconfigurable Memory
  • Chapter 5 J. Presper Eckert: The Mercury Delay Line and Acoustic Storage Innovations
  • Chapter 6 John Mauchly: Logical Design, Meteorology, and the Vision of General-Purpose Computation
  • Chapter 7 Early Conceptions of Stored Programming: The 1944 Moore School Discussions
  • Chapter 8 John von Neumann Enters the Scene: The Manhattan Project Connection
  • Chapter 9 The EDVAC Meetings: Dissecting the Summer 1944 and Spring 1945 Working Notes
  • Chapter 10 The "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC": Structure, Notation, and Logical Schemas
  • Chapter 11 Dissemination and Omission: Herman Goldstine and the Missing Co-Author Bylines
  • Chapter 12 Defining the Stored-Program Architecture: Unifying Data, Instructions, and Memory
  • Chapter 13 The Biological Analogy: Von Neumann, Pitts, McCulloch, and Neural Networks
  • Chapter 14 The Moore School Lectures of 1946: Disseminating the Paradigm to the World
  • Chapter 15 Patent Conflicts and Contract Disputes: The Rupture at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Chapter 16 The IAS Machine: Von Neumann’s Engineering Laboratory at Princeton
  • Chapter 17 The Eckert-Mauchly Venture: The EDVAC Aftermath, BINAC, and the Road to UNIVAC
  • Chapter 18 British Parallel Developments: Turing, Wilkes, the EDSAC, and the Manchester Baby
  • Chapter 19 Primary Source Analysis I: Evaluating the Early Eckert Memos and Progress Reports
  • Chapter 20 Primary Source Analysis II: Close Reading of the "First Draft" Manuscript
  • Chapter 21 The Legal Battles: Honeywell v. Sperry Rand and Judicial Interpretations of Inventorship
  • Chapter 22 Architectural Deconstruction: Architectural Features of the EDVAC vs. the IAS Machine
  • Chapter 23 Historiography of the Dispute: Shifting Perspectives from the 1950s to the Present
  • Chapter 24 Sociological and Institutional Factors in Technological Attribution and Credit
  • Chapter 25 Evaluating the Evidence: A Framework for Resolving the Stored-Program Debate
Extended Catalog title. This book is part of our extended catalog and is sourced after you order. Usually this process takes less than an hour to a few hours. We'll email you when your ebook is ready.
Author:

Julie S. Hunter

Published By:

MixCache.com Extended Catalog

Type:

Nonfiction

Date Published:

September 15, 2026

Sample:

Read Sample

🎁 Includes the ebook FREE
Read it the moment it's ready, while you wait for your hardcover — no extra charge.
🚚 FREE Shipping in the USA
$7 flat rate per book to all other countries
Order:

Click to order this hardcover:

Buy Now
Ebook included · Printed to order Secure Payment
$