''Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers'' (popularly called the "Moore School Lectures") was a course in the construction of electronic

digital computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pro ...

s held at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Moore School of Electrical Engineering The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923. It was granted to Penn's School of Electrical Engineering, located in the Towne ...

between July 8, 1946, and August 30, 1946, and was the first time any computer topics had ever been taught to an assemblage of people. The course disseminated the ideas developed for the EDVAC (then being built at the Moore School as the successor computer to the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one packa ...

) and initiated an explosion of computer construction activity in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and internationally, especially in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

Background

The Moore School in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

was at the center of developments in high-speed electronic computing in 1946. On February 14 of that year it had publicly unveiled the

, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, developed in secret beginning in 1943 for the Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. Prior even to the ENIAC's completion, work had begun on a second-generation electronic digital computer, the EDVAC, which incorporated the

stored program A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms. The definition i ...

model. Work at the Moore School attracted researchers including

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

, who served as a consultant to the EDVAC project, and

Stan Frankel Stanley Phillips Frankel (1919 – May, 1978) was an American computer scientist. He worked in the Manhattan Project and developed various computers as a consultant. Early life He was born in Los Angeles, attended graduate school at the Univers ...

and

Nicholas Metropolis Nicholas Constantine Metropolis (Greek: ; June 11, 1915 – October 17, 1999) was a Greek-American physicist. Metropolis received his BSc (1937) and PhD in physics (1941, with Robert Mulliken) at the University of Chicago. Shortly afterwards, ...

of the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

, who arrived to run one of the first major programs written for the ENIAC, a mathematical simulation for the

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

project.

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had spawned major national efforts in many forms of scientific research—continued in peacetime—that required computationally intensive analysis; the thirst for information about the new Moore School computing machines had not been slaked, but instead intensified, by the distribution of von Neumann's

notes Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * Notes (album), ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) sho ...

on the EDVAC's logical design. Rather than allow themselves to be inundated with requests for demonstrations or slow progress in computer research by withholding the benefits of the Moore School's expertise until papers could be published formally, the administration, including Dean

Harold Pender Harold Pender (1879–1959) was an American academic, author, and inventor. He was the first Dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, a position he held from the founding of the School in 1923 until his ...

, Prof. Carl Chambers, and Director of Research Irven Travis, respectively proposed, organized, and secured funding for what they envisioned as a lecture series for between 30 and 40 participants enrolled by select invitation. The 8-week course was conducted under the auspices of the

United States Army Ordnance Department The United States Army Ordnance Corps, formerly the United States Army Ordnance Department, is a sustainment branch of the United States Army, headquartered at Fort Lee, Virginia. The broad mission of the Ordnance Corps is to supply Army comb ...

and the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

, who promised (by verbal authorizations) the $3,000 requested to cover lecturer salaries and fees and $4,000 for travel, printing, and overhead. ($1,569 over this figure was ultimately claimed.) Even as the Moore School found itself in the computing spotlight, its computer design team was disintegrating into splinter groups who hoped to advance computing research commercially, or academically at more prestigious institutions. In the former group were ENIAC co-inventors

J. Presper Eckert John Adam Presper Eckert Jr. (April 9, 1919 – June 3, 1995) was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly, he designed the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in c ...

and

John Mauchly John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first co ...

, who the previous March had departed the Moore School amidst a patent rights dispute to found the first computer company, the Electronic Control Company (later renamed to

Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation The Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) (March 1946 – 1950) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. It was incorporated on December 22, 1947. After building the ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania, Eckert and Ma ...

), and took many on the Moore School staff with them; in the latter group were

Herman Goldstine Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was a mathematician and computer scientist, who worked as the director of the IAS machine at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study and helped to develop ENIAC, the ...

(the Army's liaison to the Moore School who served as administrative overseer of the ENIAC's construction) and

Arthur Burks Arthur Walter Burks (October 13, 1915 – May 14, 2008) was an American mathematician who worked in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project that contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. ...

(a Moore School professor on the ENIAC design team), lured to the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

by von Neumann. Despite the somewhat acrimonious fracturing of the ENIAC/EDVAC group, these figures gave the majority of the Moore School Lectures, with Eckert and Mauchly receiving the highest salaries ($1,200 each), while Goldstine and the others received only travel expenses and an honorarium ($50 per lecture).

Lecturers and lectures

Lectures were given 5 days a week on weekdays and were from 1 to 3 hours long with afternoons typically reserved for informal seminars. Many of the pioneers of early computer development, especially those involved with ENIAC contributed to the Moore School Lectures, most prolifically Pres Eckert, followed by John Mauchly and Herman Goldstine. The topics covered virtually all facets of electronic computing relevant to the construction and operation of digital computers, and included, by popular demand, an unscheduled presentation of the ENIAC during the latter half of the sixth week and the first half of the seventh week, with lectures by Mauchly, Sharpless, and Chu. Discussions of the ENIAC were resisted since its logical design had been obsoleted even before its completion by ongoing work on the EDVAC with its stored-program concept; nevertheless, it was the only electronic digital computer then in operation and the students petitioned to see demonstrations and learn of its design.

From the Moore School team

of the Electronic Control Company: **"A Preview of a Digital Computing Machine" (July 15, 1946) **"Types of Circuits—General" (July 18, 1946) **"Reliability of Parts" (July 23, 1946) **"Adders" (July 26, 1946) (with Sheppard) **"Multipliers" (July 29, 1946) **"Tapetypers and Printing Mechanisms" (August 1, 1946) **"Continuous Variable Input and Output Devices" (August 6, 1946) **"Reliability and Checking" (August 7, 1946) **"Electrical Delay Lines" (August 14, 1946) **"A Parallel-Type EDVAC" (August 22, 1946) **"A Parallel Channel Computing Machine" (August 26, 1946) *

John W. Mauchly John William Mauchly (August 30, 1907 – January 8, 1980) was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first co ...

of the Electronic Control Company: **"Digital and Analogy Computing Machines" (July 8, 1946) **"The Use of Function Tables with Computing Machines" (July 12, 1946) **"Sorting and Collating" (July 25, 1946) **"Conversion Between Binary and Decimal Number Systems" (July 29, 1946) **"Code and Control II: Machine Design and Instruction Codes" (August 9, 1946) **"Introduction to the ENIAC" (August 15, 1946) (unscheduled) **"Block Diagrams of the ENIAC III" (August 20, 1946) (unscheduled) **"Accumulation of Errors in Numerical Methods" (August 30, 1946) *

of the

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

: **"Numerical Mathematical Methods I" (July 10, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods II" (July 11, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods III" (July 16, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods V" (July 22, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods VI" (July 30, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods VII" (August 2, 1946) *

Arthur W. Burks Arthur Walter Burks (October 13, 1915 – May 14, 2008) was an American mathematician who worked in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project that contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. ...

of the

: **"Digital Machine Functions" (July 12, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods IV" (July 22, 1946) **"Numerical Mathematical Methods VIII" (August 2, 1946) * T. Kite Sharpless of the Moore School: **"Switching and Coupling Circuits" (July 19, 1946) **"Block Diagrams of the ENIAC I" (August 16, 1946) (unscheduled) **"Block Diagrams of the ENIAC II" (August 19, 1946) (unscheduled) **"Description of Serial Acoustic Binary EDVAC I" (August 28, 1946) **"Description of Serial Acoustic Binary EDVAC II" (August 28, 1946) *

Jeffrey Chuan Chu Jeffrey Chuan Chu (朱傳榘) (July 14, 1919 – June 6, 2011), born in Tianjin, Republic of China, was a pioneer computer engineer. He received his BS from the University of Minnesota and his MS from the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvan ...

of the Moore School: **"Magnetic Recording" (July 31, 1946) **"Block Diagrams of the ENIAC IV" (August 21, 1946) (unscheduled) * C. Bradford Sheppard of the Moore School: **"Elements of a Complete Computing System" (July 15, 1946) **"Adders" (July 26, 1946) (with Eckert) **"Memory Devices" (July 24, 1946) **"Code and Control I" (August 8, 1946) (filling in for Eckert) **"Code and Control III" (scheduled but not given) **"A Four-Channel Coded-Decimal Electrostatic Machine" (August 27, 1946) * Irven Travis of the Moore School: **"The History of Computing Devices" (July 8, 1946) * Sam B. Willams, consultant to the Moore School: **"Reliability and Checking in Digital Computing Systems" (August 7, 1946)

From the University of Pennsylvania

Hans Rademacher Hans Adolph Rademacher (; 3 April 1892, Wandsbeck, now Hamburg-Wandsbek – 7 February 1969, Haverford, Pennsylvania, USA) was a German-born American mathematician, known for work in mathematical analysis and number theory. Biography Rademacher r ...

: **"On the Accumulation of Errors in Numerical Integration on the ENIAC" (July 22, 1946)

From Harvard University

Howard Aiken Howard Hathaway Aiken (March 8, 1900 – March 14, 1973) was an American physicist and a pioneer in computing, being the original conceptual designer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I computer. Biography Aiken studied at the University of Wisconsi ...

: **"The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator" (July 16, 1946) **"Electro-Mechanical Tables of the Elementary Functions" (July 17, 1946)

From the U.S. Navy Office of Research and Inventions

* Perry Crawford, Jr.: **"Applications of Digital Computation Involving Continuous Input and Output Variables" (August 5, 1946)

From the National Bureau of Standards

* John H. Curtiss: **"A Review of Government Requirements and Activities in the Field of Automatic Digital Computing Machinery" (August 1, 1946)

From the University of California, Berkeley

* Derrick H. Lehmer: **"Computing Machines for Pure Mathematics" (July 9, 1946)

From the University of Manchester, England

Douglas Hartree Douglas Rayner Hartree (27 March 1897 – 12 February 1958) was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree–Fock equations of atomic physics and the c ...

: **"Some General Considerations in the Solutions of Problems in Applied Mathematics" (July 9, 1946)

From RCA

* Jan Rajchman: **"The Selectron" (August 23, 1946)

From the Naval Ordnance Laboratory

* Calvin N. Mooers: **"Code and Control IV: Examples of a Three-Address Code and the Use of 'Stop Order Tags'" (August 12, 1946) **"Discussions of Ideas for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory Computing Machine" (August 26, 1946)

From the Institute for Advanced Study

: **"New Problems and Approaches" (August 13, 1946)

Independent consultant

George Stibitz George Robert Stibitz (April 30, 1904 – January 31, 1995) was a Bell Labs researcher internationally recognized as one of the fathers of the modern digital computer. He was known for his work in the 1930s and 1940s on the realization of Boole ...

: **"Introduction to the Course on Electronic Computers" (July 8, 1946) The initial plan for the lectures, outlined by Chambers in a June 28, 1946, memorandum, was for them to be grouped into four major headings, with the second and third being presented concurrently after the completion of the first: General Introduction to Computing, covering the history, types, and uses of computing devices; Machine Elements, focusing on hardware and, indeed, software, under the term "code and control"; Detailed Study of Mathematics of Problems, what today might constitute a course in programming, including the Goldstine/Burks lectures on numerical mathematical methods and Mauchly's lectures on sorting, decimal-binary conversion and error accumulation; and finally a series of lectures on overall machine design called Final Detailed Presentation of Three Machines, though it actually came to include six machines, including the ENIAC, which despite its fame had not been an intended focus of any of the lectures. The actual record of the lectures is incomplete. While many of the lectures were recorded on a

wire recorder Wire recording or magnetic wire recording was the first magnetic recording technology, an analog type of audio storage in which a magnetic recording is made on a thin steel wire. The first crude magnetic recorder was invented in 1898 by Valde ...

Herman Lukoff Herman Lukoff (May 2, 1923 – September 24, 1979) was a computer pioneer and fellow of the IEEE. Formative years Lukoff was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Aaron and Anna (Slemovitz) Lukoff. He graduated from the Moore School of Electrica ...

and Dick Merwin, the recorder frequently broke down mid-lecture, and the recordings took several months to be transcribed and proofed by the lecturers. It wasn't until two years after the lectures, in 1948, that all of the material was assembled and published in four volumes edited by the Moore School's George W. Patterson, who was on the EDVAC staff. Some of the gaps have since been filled in with the notes of student Frank M. Verzuh.

Students

28 students were invited to attend the Moore School Lectures, each a veteran engineer or mathematician: * Sam N. Alexander, Edward W. Cannon, and

Roger Curtis Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, 1st Baronet, GCB (4 June 1746 – 14 November 1816) was an officer of the British Royal Navy, who saw action in several battles during an extensive career that was punctuated by a number of highly controversial incide ...

of the National Bureau of Standards * Mark Breiter of the

War Department War Department may refer to: * War Department (United Kingdom) * United States Department of War (1789–1947) See also * War Office, a former department of the British Government * Ministry of defence * Ministry of War * Ministry of Defence * Dep ...

's Office of the Chief of Ordnance * Arthur B. Horton, Warren S. Loud, and Lou D. Wilson of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

* David R. Brown and Robert R. Everett of the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory * Frank M. Verzuh of MIT's Rockefeller Electronic Computer Project *Howard L. Clark and G.W. Hobbs of

General Electric Co. General Electric Company (GE) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York (state), New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated ...

* R.D. Elbourne of the

Naval Ordnance Laboratory The Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL) was a facility in the White Oak area of Montgomery County, Maryland. It is now used as the headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Origins The U.S. Navy Mine Unit, later the Mine Laboratory at t ...

, who worked for

John Vincent Atanasoff John Vincent Atanasoff, , (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor from mixed Bulgarian-Irish origin, best known for being credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer. Atanasoff invented the ...

* Herbert Galman and Joshua Rosenbloom of the

Frankford Arsenal The Frankford Arsenal is a former United States Army ammunition plant located adjacent to the Bridesburg neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, north of the original course of Frankford Creek. History Opened in 1816 on of land pu ...

* Orin P. Gard of

Wright Field Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Loca ...

's Armament Laboratory * Simon E. Gluck of the Moore School * D.H. Gridley and Louis Suss of the

Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological ...

* Samuel Lubkin of

Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at ...

's Ballistics Research Laboratory * James T. Pendergrass of the

OP-20-G OP-20-G or "Office of Chief Of Naval Operations (OPNAV), 20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications, G Section / Communications Security", was the U.S. Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group during World War II. Its mission ...

CNO Navy Department *

David Rees David or Dai Rees may refer to: Entertainment * David Rees (author) (1936–1993), British children's author * Dave Rees (born 1969), American drummer for SNFU and Wheat Chiefs * David Rees (cartoonist) (born 1972), American cartoonist and televis ...

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, England * Albert Sayre of the

Army Security Agency The United States Army Security Agency (ASA) was the United States Army's signals intelligence branch from 1945 to 1976. The Latin motto of the Army Security Agency was ''Semper Vigiles'' (Vigilant Always), which echoes the declaration, often ...

* Phillip A. Shaffer, Jr. of the Naval Ordnance Testing Station,

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

* Claude E. Shannon of

Bell Telephone Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

* Albert E. Smith of the Navy Office of Research and Inventions *

Maurice V. Wilkes Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010) was a British computer scientist who designed and helped build the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), one of the earliest stored program computers, and who in ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, who joined the course only for its final two weeks after numerous problems with his travel * H.I. Zagor of the Reeves Instrument Company Uninvited attendees saw at least some of the lectures: *

Cuthbert Hurd Cuthbert Corwin Hurd (April 5, 1911 – May 22, 1996) was an American computer scientist and entrepreneur, who was instrumental in helping the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computers. Life Hurd ...

Allegheny College he, תגל ערבה ותפרח כחבצלת , mottoeng = "Add to your faith, virtue and to your faith, knowledge" (2 Peter 1:5)"The desert shall rejoice and the blossom as the rose" (Isaiah 35:1) , faculty = 193 ...

Oral history interview with Cuthbert Corwin Hurd
Oral history interview by Robert W. Seidel, 18 November 1994.

Charles Babbage Institute The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...

, University of Minnesota. *

Jay Forrester Jay Wright Forrester (July 14, 1918 – November 16, 2016) was a pioneering American computer engineer and systems scientist. He is credited with being one of the inventors of magnetic core memory, the predominant form of random-access computer ...

of MIT *Unidentified representatives of the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory who took the place of Brown and Everett on any given week Additionally, many of the lecturers attended a number of the lectures by others. The individuals and institutions represented at the Moore School Lectures went on to be involved with numerous successful computer construction projects in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including

EDSAC The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the Universi ...

BINAC BINAC (Binary Automatic Computer) was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in 1949. Eckert and Mauchly, though they had started the design of EDVAC at the Univers ...

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

CALDIC CALDIC (the California Digital Computer) was an electronic digital computer built with the assistance of the Office of Naval Research at the University of California, Berkeley between 1951 and 1955 to assist and enhance research being conducted at ...

, SEAC and SWAC, the

IAS machine The IAS machine was the first electronic computer built at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. It is sometimes called the von Neumann machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a ...

, and the

Whirlwind A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow (current) gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and ...

. The success of the Moore School Lectures prompted

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

to host the first computer conference in January, 1947; that same year the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

was founded as a professional society to organize future conferences.

References

* * * * {{cite book , author-last=Shurkin , author-first=Joel , author-link=Joel Shurkin , title=Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer from Mainframes to Microprocessors , date=1996 , edition=2 , publisher= W. W. Norton & Company , location=New York, New York; London, England , isbn=0-393-31471-5 , page=205

External links

The 48 Moore School Lectures and a Digest of the Final Lectures
by Brian Napper

by John R. Harris * ttps://archive.today/20130626235338/http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/59493/items-by-subject?subject=Moore+School+of+Electrical+Engineering Oral history interviews on Moore School

, University of Minnesota. Includes interviews wit
Carl ChambersJ. Presper EckertIrven A. TravisS. Reid WarrenArthur W. BurksAlice BurksJames T. Pendergrass
and others.
Frank M. Verzuh Moore School Lecture Notes 1946

, University of Minnesota. Personal lecture notes on the theory and techniques for the design of electronic digital computers, July 8-August 31, 1946 History of computing hardware University of Pennsylvania