Jnc: A key event in the initial explosion of computers

2026-09-16T17:26:47Z

A key event in the initial explosion of computers

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The '''Moore School Lectures''' were a series of tutorials/lectures on the then-known state of the art in [[electronic]] [[computing device]]s, held at the Moore School in Philadelphia from 8th July to August 30th, 1946. The speakers were mostly members of the team which had constructed the [[ENIAC]] (principally [[John Mauchly]], [[J. Presper Eckert]] and [[Herman Goldstine]]), and also those who were at that time discussing the [[EDVAC]] (such as [[John von Neumann]]), although a scattering of outside speakers (such as [[Howard Aiken]]) tackled some topics.

The series opened with a number of introductory and background topics (grouped as "General Introduction to Computing"); then focused of the current state of the art in [[hardware]] (as "Machine Elements"); followed by a section on "Detailed Study of Mathematics of Problems" (bearing in mind that early computers were targeted to tackling computing-intensive problems); and finished with "Final Detailed Presentation of Three Machines". The original intention had been to not have any focus on the ENIAC, which was by then felt to be something of a dead end, compared to the EDVAC, but the attendees prevailed upon the organizers to cover the ENIAC in some detail, which was done at the end.

The series had been organized hurriedly, after the Moore School had been somewhat overwhelmed with requests for visits, by people who wanted to find out what was happening with these new [[digital]] electronic computing devices. The people at the Moore School felt that the then-usual methods for distributing scholarly information (papers, and conference proceedings) would be too slow, so the lecture series was organized.

Only 28 people registered for the complete course (including [[Claude Shannon]] and [[Maurice Wilkes]]), but other people (including [[Jay Forrester]] of [[MIT|Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], and Cuthbert Hurd of [[IBM|International Business Machines]]) attended individual lectures of interest to them.

Although printed transcripts had been promised to the attendees, and were in fact eventually produced, that took a while, and by then, the return of individuals to their home institutions, and their direct interactions with people there, had made the transcripts somewhat overtaken by events. The lecture series was still tremendously successful and impactful in disseminating the work of the ENIAC/EDVAC projects, though.

==Further reading==

* ''The Moore School Lectures: Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers''; originally distributed in 4 volumes by the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania in 1947-48; reprinted by the MIT Press and Tomash in Cambridge and Los Angeles (respectively) in 1985.

==External links==

* [https://www.curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/computer50/www.computer50.org/mark1/moore.school/list.html Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers] - list of all 48 lectures
* [https://curation.cs.manchester.ac.uk/computer50/www.computer50.org/mark1/moore.school/intro.html The 1946 Moore School Lectures and a Digest of the Final Lectures]

[[Category: History]]

Moore School Lectures - Revision history

Jnc: A key event in the initial explosion of computers