John W. Mauchly (1907-1980), a physicist, worked with John Presper Eckert (1919-1995). They built the ENIAC (1941-1945), viewed by many as the first electronic digital computer. Mauchly designed the system. Eckert built the electronic circuits. Then, they started the Electronic Control Company, which built the Binary Automatic Computer (BINAC), the first business computer to store data on magnetic tape, instead of punch cards. Then, Electronic Control Company became the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp., which built the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC 1). In 1950, the firm had financial trouble and was acquired by Remington Rand Corp. In 1959, Mauchly left Rand to start a consulting firm, Mauchly Associates. In the late 1960s, he started another firm, Dynatrend.
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