The first programmable digital computer for general-purpose ENIAC in full Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was invented during world war II. It was invented by John Mauchly, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and their colleagues at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, funded by the US government at the University of Pennsylvania. It was designed explicitly for computing values for artillery range tables. It used plugboards for communicating instructions to the machine at electronic speed. Its inventors filed for patents in 1947, which was an issue in 1946, but later, after a court battle, the patent was revoked in 1967.
