Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/01/20

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Subject: [Leica] Some artifacts at the Computer History Museum #2
From: kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 08:26:59 -0800
References: <597B8605-60CA-4F0A-9A72-1326CD498F0C@acm.org> <C5E47100-31A5-4394-A557-ED958AC6B39C@frozenlight.eu>

Thanks, Nathan. Maybe next time.


Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org
650-326-8204

Question authority and the authorities will question you.




On Jan 20, 2013, at 7:50 AM, Nathan Wajsman wrote:

> Fascinating, both the technological and social aspects you touch on. 
> Thanks!
> 
> I really regret not visiting the museum during our trip to California in 
> August/September.
> 
> Cheers,
> Nathan
> 
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
> 
> YNWA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 10, 2013, at 7:16 AM, Herbert Kanner wrote:
> 
>> This story is about a computer called Univac. It was the first computer 
>> sold commercial in this country; the first purchase made by the U.S. 
>> Census Bureau. The picture is of its console, one of the more spectacular 
>> consoles around.
>> 
>> Here is some background. During World War II, the army had a bunch of 
>> women math majors calculating ballistics tables for artillery. The work 
>> couldn't keep up with the demand, and two guys named John Mauchly and J. 
>> Presper Eckert, at the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of 
>> Electrical Engineering, proposed building an "electronic brain" to do 
>> these computations. It wasn't a programmable computer in today's sense; 
>> you programmed it by how you connected various panels together--basically 
>> you rewired the room. The thing had seventeen thousand vacuum tubes.
>> 
>> Some of these women that I mentioned above were hired to figure out the 
>> rewiring. This was a formidable task; they had to start by studying the 
>> logic diagrams of the device and went on from there. Ironically (sign of 
>> the age), when the war was over, military secrecy abandoned, and the 
>> thing shown to the press, these women were totally concealed and ignored. 
>> All honors went to the male engineers.
>> 
>> In a very valid sense, this machine, called ENIAC, was the legitimate 
>> ancestor of today's computers. When military secrecy ended, the Moore 
>> School held an internationally attended seminar on computer design, one 
>> in which some basic ideas were formulated. John Von Neumann wrote a 
>> summary paper on those ideas which his secretary unfortunately 
>> distributed all around the world, the result being that Von Neumann got 
>> erroneously credited with the basic design ideas; computers were said to 
>> have the "Von Neumann architecture".
>> 
>> Here is the direct connection between ENIAC and conventionally 
>> programmable computers. Several of the panels of the ENIAC were called 
>> "function tables". They had row upon row of ten-position switches into 
>> which the values of a table, e.g. logarithms, could be set. John von 
>> Neumann, the famous mathematician, working at Los Alamos on the hydrogen 
>> bomb, heard about the ENIAC and wondered if it could help in the 
>> calculations he was organizing. Somehow, the idea arose that maybe the 
>> machine could be wired in such a way that a program (instead of a 
>> mathematical function) could be put into a function table and the machine 
>> wired up to obey any such program. The idea worked. It slowed down the 
>> machine by about a factor of six but made the execution of more complex 
>> programs feasible and cut immensely the programming time. The machine was 
>> actually used then for calculations on the hydrogen bomb.
>> 
>> Eckert and Mauchly went on to found the company that made the Univac. In 
>> addition to the Census Bureau, early models were bought by the Pentagon 
>> and the Atomic Energy Commission. The company was eventually bought by 
>> Remington Rand and ultimately became Sperry-Rand.
>> 
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002780.jpg.html
>> 
>> I also throw in for your entertainment a few detail shots of the Babbage 
>> Difference Engine.
>> 
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002717-2.jpg.html
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002720-2.jpg.html
>> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/herbk1/L1002716-2.jpg.htmlr
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Herbert Kanner
>> kanner at acm.org
>> 650-326-8204
>> 
>> Question authority and the authorities will question you.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Replies: Reply from red735i at verizon.net (Frank Filippone) ([Leica] Some artifacts at the Computer History Museum #2)
In reply to: Message from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Some artifacts at the Computer History Museum #2)
Message from photo at frozenlight.eu (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] Some artifacts at the Computer History Museum #2)