When John Mauchly and Presper Eckert developed the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II, their intention was to aid artillerymen in aiming their guns. Since then, in the past fifty years, ENIAC and its offspring have changed the way we go about both business and science. Along with the transistor, the computer has brought about transformation on a scale unmatched since the industrial revolution. Now, in a lively and evenhanded account, Joel Shurkin introduces us to the often-feuding players and the discoveries that made the computer possible-from the first models to the creation of the chip and beyond. Here is the first full account of an invention that changed the world. For this new paperback edition, Shurkin has added an epilogue and a new chapter on the latest milestones in the ongoing computer revolution.

"[G]raphically illustrates how rapidly mankind is plunging ahead technologically, for better or worse, in the last half of the twentieth century." -- New York Times Book Review

Joel Shurkin is a science writer and has run the science journalism internship at Stanford University. A former reporter for UPI and Reuters and science editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was a lead writer on the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Three Mile Island.