''Slouching towards Bethlehem''

''In presenting this paper at Bletchley Park, there is a unique opportunity to provide an assessment of the extent and limits of the electronic innovations associated with the ENIAC project (Project PX) at the University of Pennsylvania. While it is well known that John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert and other ENIAC project engineers made several basic contributions to electronic computing, this history has been grossly simplified in broad-level historical accounts. Getting a device with over 17,000 vacuum tubes to operate in an unfamiliar digital domain required a wide array of innovations. By looking at the diverse forms of knowledge embedded in the scientific and engineering practices of those who found themselves at the Moore School, it is possible to document more fully the synthesis of ideas that was coterminous with the invention of the ENIAC.''

The Circulation of Knowledge and the Origins of the ENIAC: (Or, What Was and Was Not Innovative About the American Wartime Project) Atsushi Akera 

http://ethw.org/images/b/be/Akera.pdf