LETTER TO THE BOOKSHELF
A letter regarding Nathan Ensmenger's review of Who Invented the Computer?
As the author of Who Invented The Computer?: The Legal Battle That Changed Computing History, I would like to respond to Nathan Ensmenger's review in your September–October 2003 issue.
I find Ensmenger's presentation of the facts of the case surrounding the issue of John Atanasoff's role in the early history of the electronic computer accurate and appropriate, and also his characterization of my aim, namely, to establish both Atanasoff's priority as inventor of the first electronic computer and his influence on subsequent electronic computers.
I take exception, however, to Ensmenger's assertion that I am asking the wrong question, namely, that of priority of invention. He argues that "debates about who was first [for a particular technology] rarely serve a useful role in understanding the historical development of technology." Of course, Atanasoff invented his computer in a historical context. That does not detract, however, from his having invented the first electronic computer, and indeed one that embodied over a dozen critical features of today's computers. Ensmenger further paraphrases Michael Williams: "If you add enough adjectives, you can always claim your favorite." My point is that the ABC needed no added adjectives as the first electronic computer. The ENIAC was the first general-purpose (or first programmable) electronic computer, and the ensuing EDVAC and Institute for Advanced Study Computer were the first stored-program electronic computers—all still firsts and all highly notable advances, by the way.
In this regard, Ensmenger also errs in saying that "Burks defines the history of computing solely in terms of the ABC and the ENIAC," and so "fails to acknowledge the contributions (and claims to priority) of other pioneering machines, such as the Colossus and the Zuse Z3." Actually, I extend this early history through the stored-program machines in considerable detail, especially with regard to von Neumann's role as challenged by Eckert and Mauchly. And my index lists nine references to the Colossi, the first of which actually postdated the ABC (but predated the ENIAC). I have six references to Zuse and his machines, which of course were not electronic, and I quote Zuse's lament on the PBS documentary that he could not go on to an electronic version because of the attitude of the wartime German high command.
In his last paragraph, Ensmenger complains that, "in its single-minded focus on the question of priority [the Burks book] loses sight of the bigger issues." But, as he has acknowledged earlier, my focus is twofold, on priority and on influence, both of which take me into many a bigger issue. He further characterizes my presentation of the views of other computer historians as "squabbles." Douglas Hofstadter, who wrote the Foreword for my book, told me that he particularly liked the way I presented those other writers' views as strongly as possible before I set about countering them. My purpose has been not to squabble but to illuminate the arguments on both sides of the controversy over Atanasoff (and von Neumann). It also happens that my husband Arthur and I have been widely identified as the "opposition" to the Eckert-Mauchly cause, so that other writers often address our views one way or the other. Finally, I would maintain that the concerns of my book, as to the invention of the electronic computer, the ramifications of which pervade our everyday lives, are important enough to justify serious debate.
Alice Rowe Burks
Ann Arbor, Michigan