Shown above: Kay Mauchly Antonelli (Left) and Jean Jennings Bartik (right). Jean and Kay were two of the six original computers who programmed the ENIAC and still good friends today. Kay was married to Jon Mauchly and Mauchly actually walked Jean down the aisle when she married in 1946. --Kim Todd, Museum Assistant Director

The Jean Jennings Bartik Computing Museum has had its loan of an ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) decade ring counter renewed by the Smithsonian Institution.

The loan agreement with the Smithsonian of the ENIAC decade ring counter was originally from Jaunary 2003 to Decembr 2005. The loan renewal makes it possible to keep the object on display at the Jean Jennings Computing Museum through December 2006.

The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum complex and research organization with a vast collection numbering over 142 million objects and is composed of 16 museums and galleries, as well as, the National Zoo.

The National Museum of American History, which is loaning the Northwest the ENIAC decade ring counter, was opened to the public in January 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology. It was the sixth Smithsonian building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In October 1980, the museum's name was changed to the National Museum of American History to better represent its basic mission, which was the collection, care and study of objects that reflect the experience of the American people.

Jean Jennings Bartik, whom Northwest's museum is named after, graduated from the university in 1945 and was one of six women programmers (or computers as they were called then) chosen to program the ENIAC. Later, Jennings Bartik went on to program the UNIVAC, the world's first commercial computer.

Over 140 items are currently on display in the Jean Jennings Bartik Computing Museum including a rare pot-metal miniature model of the UNIVAC I and a signed photograph of John Mauchly, the co-inventor of the ENIAC.