First-generation computers
had shown their usefulness during World War II, largely for solving codes,
and leading engineers recognized the enormous potential of devices that
could solve problems in milliseconds. By 1951, all-electronic computers
(using vacuum tubes instead of moving parts) started to be used for civilian
purposes in the United States and Britain, marking the dawn of the information
age.
In 1946, two scientists, John
Eckert and John Mauchly, while at the University of Pennsylvania, built
the first all-purpose, all-electronic digital computer, for the US army.
Disappointed by the slow pace and conflicting goals of academic research,
they left the University shortly after, to form Eckert-Mauchly Computing
Corporation. Brilliant at engineering but poor at business, they were
on the brink of bankruptcy until 1950 , when Remington Rand, a major office-supply
company, bought their business. The following year, the engineers delivered
the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) to the US Census Bureau in Philadelphia.
UNIVAC was by far the best
computer built so far. It used magnetic tape instead of bulky punch cards
for information input and output, and was capable of reading 7,200 digits
per second and of handling alphabets and numbers with ease. Its success
stirred the business-machine industry (still dependent on mechanical devices
such as typewriters), forcing sales leader IBM (International Business
Machines) to revise its low opinion of electronic computing. Determined
to protect its market, IBM set to work on its own series of "thinking"
machines. Over the next three decades, as such computers spread gradually
across the planet, most would be labeled IBM.
