Teamwork

The innovation of the PC and the history behind its development is a fascinating and crazy tale of how many different people from across the country developed their own technology that when brought together created what we have in our homes and use everyday. The invention of the PC itself is the embodiment of teamwork, with groups of brilliance being conglomerated into a successful idea, but even then, every step of the way had their own teams of people to get us there. 

Starting with the Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer or the ENIAC, which proved something like this was possible, we have a large history in the teamwork of its development. The Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer was a project lead by John Mauchly, a physicist, J. Presper Eckert Jr, an engineer, and their many collogues at Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. This large project took about 3 years of designing and constructing before it was complete.  A team of 6 women who were the 'human computers' who used to do the job of the ENIAC manually were the experts in charge of configuring and wiring the machines to complete actions, debugging errors, and handling certain equipment. 

After the ENIAC, another grand teamwork achievement came from Walter Brattain, John Bardeen, and William Shockley who shared a Nobel prize in Physics for the breakthrough at the time. Marvin Kelly who was the head of Bell Labs, apart of AT&T, one of the leading telephone companies at the time had brought the three together who were responsible for the invention of the transistor. This invention was a key component which would play their part in the overall innovation of the personal computer. 

By far the most important team working operation in the creation of the personal computer was the microprocessor. While officially invented by Ted Hoff, the intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor was a team achievement. Ted teamed up with Stanley Mazor and Federico to introduce this item to market. While the prior system was to have chips logic programming built physically into the component, with teamwork with Hoff's team, they made a general purpose chip which could be programmed through its software to complete its needed tasks. 

Finally we get to the first commercialized personal computer, the Kenbak-1. Surprisingly enough the Kenbak-1 was created only by one person, John Blakenbaker of Kenback Corporation. Originally this was created as an educational tool, yet its development would pave the way for personal computers as we know it. While not exactly a team operation, it could never have been done without the innovations that came before it.

Through trial and error, funds and costs, the development of the personal computer is truly fascinating. The backbone of each brick which pathed the way for the personal computer as we know it today came from groups and leagues of collaborators, each with insane expertise which made them professionals in their fields. Without each member of the team, the innovation wouldn't have been possible.