What Happened on February 5th

John Mauchly sends a letter to his partner, J. Presper Eckert, complaining that little progress had been made in ensuring that their new company—Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp.—would be successful. The two computing pioneers had founded the company a few months earlier. Mauchly wrote: "The more I think about the situation in which we find ourselves at present, the more I am convinced that we are losing a hell of a lot of valuable time [because] we are slow in making necessary decisions."