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J. Presper Eckert demonstrates the UNIVAC mainframe computer that he helped design for the United States Census Bureau, Philadelphia, PA, June 14, 1951.
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J. Presper Eckert is shown demonstrating the UNIVAC mainframe computer that he helped design.

Credit: Image donated by Corbis-Bettmann

More sophisticated, reliable and user-friendly than their earlier BINAC computer, Eckert and Mauchley's Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) featured an input device modeled on a typewriter keyboard, data tapes rather than punch cards, and data recall from memory. Delivered to the Federal Census Bureau on June 14, 1951, the first UNIVAC I performed so well that Eckert and Mauchley soon had dozens of orders from military and commercial buyers.

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