ABSTRACT
What really happened in the 1950s, is that the computer was reconstructed—;;mainly by computer manufacturers and business users—;;to be an electronic data-processing machine rather than a mathematical instrument. The contract to build an EDVAC-type machine for the Census Bureau was signed in October 1946, and the computer was officially named UNIVAC, for UNIVersal Automatic Computer. The BINary Automatic Computer (BINAC) would be a very different order of machine than the UNIVAC. It would be much smaller; it would be a scientific machine, not a data processor; and it would not use magnetic tape—;;perhaps the biggest task in Eckert and Mauchly's portfolio. Meanwhile International Business Machines (IBM), the company that was to become Eckert and Mauchly's prime competitor, was beginning to respond to the computer. IBM also had two further full-scale computers under development in 1949: the Magnetic Drum Calculator (MDC) and the Tape Processing Machine (TPM).
