Soaking, John William

Soaking, John William (Mauchly John William) (30 August 1907, Tsintsinnatti, pc. Ohio - January 8, 1980, Ambler, pc. Pennsylvania), American physicist and engineer, inventor (1946, together with Pr. Eckert), the first universal computer "ENIAC" (ENIAC).

He taught electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. During the Second World War, along with Eckert addressed the problem of accelerating conversion of artillery firing tables for the U.S. armed forces.

The result was a construction of the universal digital computer, which could operate on encoded data. Using the development of J. Atanasoff, colleagues in 1946 completed the creation of a model "ENIAC" (ENIAC), a huge machine, which consisted of more than 18 thousand electron tubes. Weight was 30 tons, it is required to accommodate 170 m2. The machine is operated on binary numbers and could perform 5000 additions or 300 multiplications per second. For the first time this machine was used in ballistic military research at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1947.

In 1948, soaking and Eckert founded the company to produce computers, which a year later presented a binary automatic computer (BINAC), in which instead of punch cards have a magnetic tape. Soaking proposed the idea of such a coding system that would allow the machine to perceive algebraic equations, written in traditional form.

In 1950, the firm Eckert and soaking was acquired by Remington Rand (later Sperry Rand Corporation).

A third computer was soaked and Eckert UNIVAC I, was created specifically for commercial payments. He was free to handle both numeric and symbolic information. The first prototype car was handed over to the U.S. Census Bureau. Then it was developed many different models of UNIVAC, which found application in other areas. Thus, UNIVAC was the first serial computer.

For his achievements in the computer field soaking was awarded many prizes. In 1959-65, he served as president and in 1965-69 - Chairman of the Board Mauchly Associates, Inc., In 1968-80 - President Dynatrend Inc., In 1970-80 - President Marketrend Inc.