From: smith@sctc.com (Rick Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Subject: Re: PBS show and Atanasoff
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:23:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: sctc.1992Apr13.162333.23034
Organization: SCTC

eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes:

>The PBS show followed the view of the majority of historians, and I find
>it hard to criticize them on this point, even though I myself feel that
>Mauchly did not give Atanasoff proper credit.

They didn't say anything about work at Bell Labs, either.

Considering the situation, I don't find Mauchly's alleged lapses all
that surprising. I would like to believe that I'll always give and
receive proper credit on things I work on, but it's not as easy as it
seems. The only 'smoking gun' about Mauchly's part is his claim at
the trial that he hadn't met Atanasoff when there were records and
correspondence indicating that Mauchly visited him and discussed
computers.

Since becoming familiar with the nuts and bolts of inventions and
patent disclosure I've found myself becoming more tolerant of Eckert
and Mauchly's lapse with respect to Atanasoff's contributions.  I no
longer think it unusual or intentionally dishonest that some of
Atanasoff's ideas found their way into the ENIAC patent. Maybe there
was intentional dishonesty, but there's no more proof of that than
there is of oversight or a misunderstanding of patent law.

In practice, you should credit people with contributing to the patent
if they present you with a technical solution or improvement that you
didn't think of yourself. There isn't enough documentation to show
that Mauchly was stumped by some technical problem until Atanasoff
explained The Answer to him.  Even so, if I were Mauchly I'd take
anything Atanasoff said with a grain of salt.  After all, he never
built anything on the scale of ENIAC.  This doesn't mean that he
didn't have some good ideas, just that it probably doesn't matter if
Mauchly heard them from Atanasoff first or not.  Mauchly had to choose
the Right Approach and validate it the hard way regardless of who
thought it up first.

This is one of the reasons why sensible science fiction authors at
most joke about "lost patent royalties" when their fictional concept
becomes a reality. Most understand that the bright idea is the easy
part. Making it work is the hard part.

I assume that Eckert and Mauchly lost their case for two key reasons.
First, Atanasoff could document _when_ he formulated and disclosed
various ideas that the Court decided were "inventions" covered by the
patent. Second, Atanasoff could document the fact that he had
discussed computer design with Mauchly. Patent law then mandates that
the invention belongs at least in part to Atanasoff.

>Here's that note from the producers.

>  ...
>  We understand and appreciate the controversy regarding Atanasoff, but
>  feel that our decision was correct.  In the words of Sir Francis
>  Darwin (in 1914):
>  "In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not
>  to whom the idea first occurs.

The "Columbus" TV series pointed out a similar thing: even though
Columbus didn't "discover" the Western Hemisphere, he was an
outstanding historical figure simply by virtue of what he set in
motion. Neither the acts of the native American populations nor the
visits by random Vikings started the European migration to America:
Columbus started it, for better or worse. Similarly, Eckert and
Mauchly set an industry in motion, which makes their story
significant.

Maybe Atanasoff and Berry could have built their own machine that
would have beat the pants off of ENIAC. Like with Columbus, it was the
chances of history and government patronage that let one team succeed
while the other team went back to teaching students.

Rick.
smith@sctc.com         arden hills, minnesota
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm