Not so. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer predated the ENIAC as the first general purpose digital electronic computer. This was determined in court. Simply, prior to creation of the ENIAC, its designer conferred with Professor Atanasoff and basically used the revealed principles to develop the ENIAC.
But who cares?
We all should. It is because of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), that we have personal computers today.
The ENIAC was developed under an umbrella of government secrecy. Its patents were locked up tighter than Fort Knox so that We The People had no access to them. Through decades of court cases it was definitively proven that the ABC was existing art prior to the ENIAC. And the ABC had no patents (Iowa State College neglected to file for them). So the ENIAC patents were busted wide open.
Once those patents were broken, the legal obstacles were cleared to develop and market personal computers.
And several steps later, we have Freepers ;-)
Until Obama's political purges begin.
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer was not general purpose, as it was built to solve linear equations only, and could not be programmed. Yes, it was the first electronic computer, of a sort, but not the first true computer as we know them, i.e. a programmable system with volatile memory etc.