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ENIAC in action : making and remaking the modern computer
Haigh T., Priestley M., Rope C., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016. 360 pp. Type: Book (978-0-262033-98-5)
Date Reviewed: Jul 28 2016

In this volume, the actions surrounding ENIAC are important in understanding the making and remaking of the modern computer. As such, this is not simply a history per se but it features the circumstances, personalities, and ways in which this early machine was used or acted upon. To understand this fresh historical approach, it is necessary to grasp that this volume is a nod to Bruno Latour’s Science in action [1], a foundational work of science studies. Artifacts, such as ENIAC and its components, interact in conjunction with human endeavor. “The concept of action, in this broad sense, runs through the entire book” (p. 3). The physical ENIAC then is shown to carry out computations, but the machine is also examined from the initial sketches and the subsequent action of ENIAC to feature the participation of women in computing. The volume is historical in a broadly chronological manner, but the action approach featured within differs from previous accounts and situates ENIAC within areas of programming practice, computing labor, and scientific practice.

The work is the first scholarly book devoted to ENIAC while also examining how the machine was used as a scientific instrument. ENIAC was widely publicized early on during its creation, and it also was a central feature of high-level legal proceedings; there is no doubt that ENIAC remains standard fare in most histories of computing. However, these earlier accounts show ENIAC as: (1) the world’s first computer, or (2) one of a series of steps leading to the development of the modern computer, and (3) as the workplace of the first computer programmers. The task here, in contrast, is to show “ENIAC as a physical machine changing over time, as a busy workplace, or as a scientific instrument” (p. 2). There are seven action areas: ENIAC as a machine of war, ENIAC as the “first computer,” ENIAC as an obligatory point of passage, ENIAC as a material artifact, ENIAC as the origin point of computer programming, ENIAC as a site of technical analysis, and ENIAC as an object of contested historical memory.

ENIAC began as a machine of war, though it was only first operational after World War II in December of 1945. ENIAC’s first six months of operation were spent in limbo between strictly “experimental” and “actually working“ (pp. 88-90). Even after it began to be used regularly for actual scientific calculations, it was extremely unreliable. The New York Times reported that only five percent of ENIAC’s 40-hour work week was spent on production work. Although earlier accounts attributed vacuum tube burnout as the source of this unreliability, Haigh et al. discovered that “intermittents” (difficult-to-find failures including power supply voltage spikes, shorted cables, and bad solder joints) were more frequent causes of breakdown (pp. 120–127, 210–211). Indeed, although it theoretically ran faster than the Army’s mechanical relay calculators, those could be set to run fully automatically and produce a result with no human intervention. Only after ENIAC’s conversion to a new “stored program” mode of programming and operation in 1948 was it able to spend more than half of its time doing productive work (p. 210).

Since the authors are interested more in the ENIAC in action, the post-1948 ENIAC, when it was converted to what they call the “modern code paradigm,” is significant: a key component of what other historians and computer pioneers have labeled “the stored program concept” (pp. 129, 231). In its original form, ENIAC was not “programmed” but was “set up” by manually rewiring cables between its different components. The authors demonstrate that configuring ENIAC for a problem was like constructing a special-purpose computer anew each time out of a general-purpose kit of parts.

The historiography of computing, as opposed to computer history, has elicited less attention in computing; however, this volume has opened up a new vista and as such this work is an important contribution to the history of computers. This reviewed volume demonstrates how ENIAC is critical in understanding how the machine is a first. The question of “firsts” seems simple, but is actually quite complex. Haigh and his collaborators, in fact, argue that ENIAC deserves credit for a new “first”: the first computer to run a program stored in memory. Moreover, the ENIAC is significant not simply because of a “first,” but because of its influence and impact on later computers.

The volume reviewed here compares favorably with other titles such as those by Ceruzzi [2], Burks and Burks [3], and Burks [4].

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Reviewer:  G. Mick Smith Review #: CR144644 (1610-0746)
1) Latour, B. Science in action (rev. ed.). Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1988.
2) Ceruzzi, P. E. A history of modern computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1998.
3) Burks, A. R.; Burks, A. W. The first electronic computer: the Atanasoff story. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1988.
4) Burks, A. R. Who invented the computer?: the legal battle that changed history. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2003.
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Other reviews under "ENIAC": Date
ENIAC in action: making and remaking the modern computer
Haigh T., Priestley M., Rope C., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016.  360, Type: Book (978-0-262033-98-5), Reviews: (1 of 4)
May 25 2016
ENIAC in action: making and remaking the modern computer
Haigh T., Priestley M., Rope C., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016.  360, Type: Book (978-0-262033-98-5), Reviews: (2 of 4)
Jun 29 2016
ENIAC in action: making and remaking the modern computer
Haigh T., Priestley M., Rope C., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016.  360, Type: Book (978-0-262033-98-5), Reviews: (4 of 4)
Sep 14 2016

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