The UNIVAC I was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer design for business application produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC. Design work was started by their company, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), and was completed after the company had been acquired by Remington Rand. In the years before successor models of the UNIVAC I appeared, the machine was simply known as "the UNIVAC".
A UNIVAC I at the United States Census Bureau in 1951
UNIVAC I operator's console
UNIVAC I at Franklin Life Insurance Company
Remington Rand employees, Harold E. Sweeney (left) and J. Presper Eckert (center) demonstrate the U.S. Census Bureau's UNIVAC for CBS reporter Walter Cronkite (right).
John Adam Presper Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly, he designed the first general-purpose electronic digital computer (ENIAC), presented the first course in computing topics, founded the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, and designed the first commercial computer in the U.S., the UNIVAC, which incorporated Eckert's invention of the mercury delay-line memory.
J. Presper Eckert (center), co-designer of the UNIVAC, and Harold Sweeny of the US Census Bureau at the console of the UNIVAC, with Walter Cronkite (r.) on CBS TV, during Presidential election night, 1952