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EDVAC
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==Project and plan== <!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Screen Shot 2020-09-06 at 8.58.54 AM big.png|thumb|First page of ''Automatic High-Speed Computing: A Progress Report on the EDVAC''. [[Computer History Museum]].]] --> ENIAC inventors John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert proposed EDVAC's construction in August 1944, and design work for EDVAC commenced before ENIAC was fully operational. The design would implement a number of important architectural and logical improvements conceived during the ENIAC's construction and would incorporate a high-speed [[Delay-line memory|serial-access memory]].<ref name=Wilkes>{{cite book | last=Wilkes | first=M. V. | author-link=Maurice Vincent Wilkes | title=Automatic Digital Computers | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | year=1956 | location=New York | pages=305 pages | id=QA76.W5 1956 }}</ref> Like the ENIAC, the EDVAC was built for the [[United States Army|U.S. Army]]'s [[Ballistics Research Laboratory]] at the [[Aberdeen Proving Ground]] by the [[University of Pennsylvania]]'s [[Moore School of Electrical Engineering]].{{r|EoCS2003|pp=626–628}} Eckert and Mauchly and the other ENIAC designers were joined by [[John von Neumann]] in a consulting role; von Neumann summarized and discussed logical design developments in the 1945 ''[[First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC]]'', written between February and June of that year.<ref>[http://www.virtualtravelog.net/entries/2003-08-TheFirstDraft.pdf "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040423232125/http://www.virtualtravelog.net/entries/2003-08-TheFirstDraft.pdf |date=2004-04-23 }} ([[PDF]] format) by John von Neumann, Contract No.W-670-ORD-4926, between the United States Army Ordnance Department and the [[University of Pennsylvania]]. [[Moore School of Electrical Engineering]], University of Pennsylvania, June 30, 1945. The report is also available in {{cite book| first=Nancy| last=Stern| title=From ENIAC to UNIVAC: An Appraisal of the Eckert–Mauchly Computers| publisher=Digital Press| year=1981}}</ref><ref name="EDVAC Draft">{{cite web|url=https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=806|title=The von Neumann Architecture|work=History of Information|access-date=November 29, 2024}}</ref> Later in September 1945, Eckert and Mauchly followed up with a progress report on automatic high-speed computing for the EDVAC.<ref name="EDVAC Report">{{cite web|url=https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=3627|title=The First Engineering Report on the EDVAC|work=History of Information|access-date=November 29, 2024}}</ref> In early 1946, months after the completion of ENIAC, the [[University of Pennsylvania]] adopted a new patent policy, which would have required Eckert and Mauchly to assign all their patents to the university if they stayed beyond spring of that year. Unable to reach an agreement with the university, the duo left the [[Moore School of Electrical Engineering]] in March 1946, along with many of the senior engineering staff. Simultaneously, the duo founded the Electronic Control Company (later renamed the [[Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation]]) in [[Philadelphia]].<ref>{{cite video|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGk9W65vXNA|date=May 14, 2015|title=Computer History: ENIAC - The First Electronic Computer|author=Computer History Archives Project|work=[[YouTube]]|access-date=November 11, 2024|url-status=live}}</ref> A contract to build the new computer was signed in April 1946 with an initial budget of [[United States dollar|US$]]100,000. Later in August of that year, during the last of the [[Moore School Lectures]], the Moore School team members were proposing new technological designs for the computer and its [[stored program]] concept. The contract named the device the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Calculator. The final cost of EDVAC, however, was similar to the ENIAC's, at just under $500,000. The [[Raytheon Company]] was a subcontractor on EDVAC machines.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Raytheon Company {{!}} Selling the Computer Revolution {{!}} Computer History Museum |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/q-s/raytheon-company/ |access-date=2022-04-20 |website=www.computerhistory.org}}</ref>
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