[wendy1946]

I don’t see the idea of claiming that any one person invented the computer itself. The man who invented modern computing more or less was Herman Goldstyne.

[Milhous]

Marxist Great Man history ignores the multitudes who contribute to pretend that the guy with the best PR did it all by himself.

[Milhous]

BTW, in October 1973 Judge Larson ruled that Goldstyne's colleague Mauchly, had "derived" concepts from Atanasoff.:

"Prior to his vist to Ames, Iowa, Mauchly had been broadly interested in electrical analog calculating devices, but had not conceived an automatic electronic digital computer.

"As a result of this visit, the discussions of Mauchly with Atanasoff and Berry, the demonstrations, and the review of the manuscript, Mauchly derived from the ABC 'the invention of the automatic electronic digital computer' claimed in the ENIAC patent."

[wally_bert]

Kind of off topic but here is something from the old James Burke Connections I that sort of talks about an early aspect of computing, starting about 4:25 in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeivC9n6ewc