Photography by John Michael

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The REAL Father of Computing – the ENIAC Computer Team

The ENIAC was the first computer! ENIAC stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.

It’s hardly known, but in my research about the guns of the esteemed Presidential Salute Battery of the 3d Infantry Regiment of the US Army – “THE OLD GUARD”, I came across what I believe is the true “Father of Computers” – Major General G. M. Barnes, US Army who was the Chief of the Research and Development of the Army Ordnance Department during WW II and beyond. It was under his leadership that the project was sponsored and led us into the computer age. Think about it, the ENIAC computer was created (with its 19,000 vacuum tubes) to address the complicated calculations of trajectory for firing of cannon and other artillery… from that room-sized behemoth, we now have computers that make life better.

Again the US Army – the Army Research Lab (ARL) has contributed greatly to the world and has gotten little recognition.

I located an old photo in the National Archives that shows the General along with others of the ENIAC Team.

In the photo you will find — Left to Right: J. Presper Eckert, Jr., Chief Engineer; Professor J. G. Brainerd, Supervisor; Sam Feltman, Chief Engineer for Ballistics, Ordnance Department; Captain H. H. Goldstine, Liaison Officer; Dr. J. W. Mauchly, Consulting Engineer; Dean Harold Pender, Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania; General G. M. Barnes, Chief of the Ordnance Research and Development Service; Colonel Paul N. Gillon, Chief, Research Branch of the Army Ordnance Research and Development Service.

GHTime Code(s): nc nc