Computerworld has a lovely interview with J. Presper Eckert, co-inventor of the ENIAC, “the first practical, all-electronic computer.” Eckert sounds like a likable crank, dishing dirt on Von Neumann’s undeserved credit, the myths of the ENIAC, and the strategic value of tester-mice in early computer tech:
There’s a story that ENIAC dimmed the lights in Philadelphia when it was in use.
That story is total fiction, dreamed up by some journalist. We took power off of the grid. We had voltage regulators to provide 150 kilowatts of regulated supply.
Did the military guys working on ENIAC salute the machine?
Another ENIAC myth…
What’s the zaniest thing you did while developing ENIAC?
The mouse cage was pretty funny. We knew mice would eat the insulation off the wires, so we got samples of all the wires that were available and put them in a cage with a bunch of mice to see which insulation they did not like. We only used wire that passed the mouse test.
(via Joho the Blog)