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Who Invented the Computer? The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History
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Author: Alice Rowe Burks, Douglas R. Hofstadter
List Price: $35.00
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1591020344
Publisher: Prometheus Books (January, 2003)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 88,960
Average Customer Rating: 1 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 1 out of 5
Vengeance with a capital V
Since her husband tried to blackmail Mauchly into putting his name on the ENIAC patent application and failed, the Burks Duo have been badmouthing him ever since. I just hope that someone will look over the trial documents and show how only a bought judge would act as Judge Larson did in this trial. Honeywell got the trial moved to Minneapolis where Honeywell is located. They were and maybe still are the largest employer in the state and own it politically. The judge was outrageous. Paul Winsor, a paid consultant to Honeywell, was the court computer expert. One would think the ABC computer, which was never built, was the IBM 360 and Atanasoff a Gene Amdahl. He never built any computer even when given $400,000 to do so. John with Pres Eckert built the ENIAC that ran for 10 years solving problems. Then they went on to design the EDVAC and build the Binac, the first stored program computer, Univac, the first commercial computer and Larc, 25 times faster than any computer of its time. Does anyone honestly believe that they got their ideas from Atanasoff? I don't think he thought so either until Honeywell told him so and offered to pay him $300,000 if they ould get the patent overturned. Much has een made of John's weak testimony at the trial. He had been in the hospital being treated for his lifelong disease, HHT (Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia). It is characterized by causing holes to form in the lungs and lesions in the brain. John was not as alert as he had been when younger. After all, years had passed and John was now an old man. Larson treated him shabbily. Furthermore, he showed the patent office no respect, for it had taken years before granting the patent. The book fairly reeks of venom and, even glee, at Goldstine's lie that the EDVAC paper by von Neumann was for internal distribution only. Imagine, Goldstine was the Security Oficer and he deliberately broke the law and nobody prosecuted him. Why not? Whatever harmed John was just wonderful. This book deserves a place in the trash can, but I hope some researcher with more patience and stomach than I will look at the real trial in Minneapolis. I was a friend, employee and coworker of John Mauchly and a friend for 58 years of Kay Mauchly with whom I worked on the ENIAC as a programmer. John was a brilliant and good man and a superb teacher. Those who knew him will not allow such garbage to dirty him in any way. He was what he was, and Alice Burks can't change that. Jean J. Bartik
Oaklyn, New Jersey 08107
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