Short Code Proposed ETL Mark III IBM and the Summa Theologica
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ETL. It employed 130 [July 1], who worked for IBM at transistors, 1,800 germanium the time. diodes, and its 128-word July This was not IBM's first foray memory unit employed into religious indexing, which ultrasonic delay elements that had begun in 1949 due to the used glass as a medium. Short Code efforts of the Jesuit priest, Proposed Roberto Busa [Nov 28]. July 1949 IBM and the Short Code was the first Summa Theologica Spreadsheet relatively high-level computer language in the sense that its July 1957 Programming statements were mathematic The Summa Theologica is July 1961 expressions rather than machine considered the greatest work of instructions. It also supported Richard Mattessich published medieval philosophy. It was branching and calls to library the article "Budgeting Models written by St. Thomas Aquinas functions. and System Simulation" in the between 1265 and 1272, and July 1961 issue of The The language was first proposed spans some sixty volumes. Accounting Review in which he by John Mauchly [August 30] at In 1957, IBM was asked by the discussed (in very general the end of July 1949, originally Pontifical faculty of Philosophy terms) how conventional as "Brief Code", and the first accounting spreadsheets might prototype, by William Schmitt, be modeled in FORTRAN IV. The was running later that year on software would calculate the the BINAC [April 4] . He ported it results of formulae expressed as to the UNIVAC [March 31] in the addition or subtraction of 1950, and it also popped up on subscripted input data. There the UNIVAC II in 1952, was no notion of an interactive implemented by A. B. Tonik and GUI as typified by VisiCalc [May J. R Logan. Its programs ran 11]. almost 50 times slower than the equivalent machine code, which This was followed by several 'proved' to many people that programming languages which high-level languages were never made it easier to write the going to be a viable coding tool. formulae, including BCL (Business Computer Language) The BINAC was also home to the by R. Brian Walsh in 1962, C-10 machine code by Mauchly AutoPlan/AutoTab by A. Leroy and Betty Holberton [March 7], Ellison, Harry N. Cantrell, and developed in 1947, the first Russell E. Edwards in 1968, and language to use mnemonic LANPAR (LANguage for names for operations (e.g. “a” for Programming Arrays at add and “b” for bring). Random) by Rene K. Pardo and Remy Landau in 1969. APL's [Dec 17] core use of A page from Thomas Aquinas' ETL Mark III multidimensional arrays made it Summa theologiae, 1482. July 1956 a good choice for building spreadsheet languages, resulting in Milan to create an index and When the Mark III came into in the IBM Financial Planning concordance of the Summa, and operation at Japan’s and Control System by Brian Pope John XXIII was so delighted Electrotechnical Laboratory Ingham, and APLDOT designed with the results that he (ETL) in July, it became the first by the US Railway association, conferred the Knights Grand stored-program transistor both in 1976. Cross of the Order of computer, and was amazingly St. Sylvester upon Thomas None of these offered an also only the second electronic Watson, Jr. [Jan 14], and his interactive grid-based user computer completed in Japan, brother Arthur. Other notable interface like that of VisiCalc. after the vacuum tube-based members of the Order include FUJIC [Nov 16]. Bob Hope and Oscar Schindler. The Mark III's development was In adition, the experience gained conducted by Takahashi Shigeru, during the project contributed Nishino Hiroji, Matsuzaki towards the development of the Isokazu and Kondo Kaoru of the KWIC Index by Hans Peter Luhn Electronics Research Division at 1 burgeoning hacker culture in the Laboratories Record" (BLR) First Computer lab during the 1960s and 1970s. magazine printed an article The ITS 1.5 Reference Manual, about the system and its Graphics Cover by Donald Eastlake, was issued teaching materials during this July 1965 some time during this month. month. The July 1965 issue of Fortune In keeping with the hacker The computer operated by sported the first magazine cover ethos, there were no passwords, means of pencil and sliding tabs, drawn using computer graphics. every file was editable, and it with any arithmetic out-sourced was easy to watch and kill any to the user. The machine It illustrated a story entitled user processes. Notable supported a generous 100 "The 500 Biggest Industrials", software written on the ITS memory cells which could hold and so featured a large "500" in included Emacs [Oct 2], MacLisp integers from 0 to ±999. A rich the foreground, colored red, [Dec 25], Macsyma [previous ten operation instruction set white, and blue, surrounded by entry], and SHRDLU [Feb 24]. allowed the CARDIAC to add, numerous red and blue arrows subtract, test, shift, input, The ITS name was chosen by pointing optimistically upwards. output, and jump. Tom Knight as a humorous The image had been generated callback to the earliest time- in black and white on a PDP-1 sharing OS from MIT, the [Nov 00] borrowed from Bolt, Compatible Time-Sharing Beranek & Newman [Oct 15], System (CTSS [May 3]). and the colors added later by applying filters to different ITS's host PDP-10 is also photographs taken of the image remembered for its "More displayed on the PDP-1's screen. Magic" switch, a little home- made switch glued to the frame of one of its cabinet. The switch had two positions, labeled Macsyma Begins ‘magic' and ‘more magic'. Close examination by curious hackers July 1968 revealed that the switch had Macsyma (Project MAC’s only one wire running to it, and SYmbolic MAnipulator) became the other end, though connected one of the first computer algebra to the wiring, was ultimately systems, and inspired many connected to a ground pin. later systems, such as Maple, Clearly the switch was useless: The front of the CARDIAC. (c) and Mathematica [June 23]. It not only was it electrically non- Bell Telephone Labs 1968. was developed at MIT’s Project operative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect MAC [July 1] by Carl Engelman, Programs were run by moving William A. Martin, and Joel anything anyway. So one of the hacker flipped the switch. three tabs (in the shapes of Moses, and coded in Maclisp, beetles) so that the number in making it the largest LISP The PDP-10 promptly crashed. the instruction register equaled program of the time. Its This time Richard Greenblatt the number in the memory cell. development also helped When a beetle moved to the next improved LISP's support for was called upon. He inspected it, concluded it was indeed useless, memory cell, the user was numerical computing and directed by an arrow to what efficient compilation. and utilized some diagonal cutters to remove it. The PDP-10 operation to perform next. In 1982, Macsyma was licensed was rebooted, and ran without The manual and kit can be found to Symbolics [March 15]. any problems. online at https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~bls 96/museum/cardiac.html ITS Described CARDIAC: Very The CARDIAC wasn't the first paper-based digital computer; July 1969 Arresting that was probably the PAPAC-00 The Incompatible Timesharing July 1969 a two-register, one-bit device, System (ITS) was an influential created by Rollin P. Mayer, and OS developed mainly by Richard The CARDIAC (CARDboard printed in the Communications Greenblatt [Dec 25] and Stewart Illustrative Aid to Computation) of the ACM [Sept 15], Sept. 1959. Nelson in the MIT AI lab, initially was a learning aid for teaching For more educational computer as a deliberate move away from high school students how kits, see [Feb 22], [April 30], the complexity of Project MAC’s computers worked. It was [Sept 30]. Multics project [Nov 30], but it developed by David Hagelbarger eventually became better known and Saul Fingerman at Bell Labs as one of the catalysts for the in 1968, but the "Bell 2 road department. They had been When PLATO IV became The NRI 832 inspired by observing another operational at the University of July/August 1971 group of students at Lakeside Illinois during the summer of School who were currently 1972, it offered several major The National Radio Institute doing this job manually. innovations: Bitzer’s orange (NRI) Journal (Vol. 28, No. 4) Incidentally, Traf-O-Data wasn't plasma screen with bitmapped announced its new home-study the pair's first business venture graphics, a microfiche selector computer electronics course, – see [Nov 18]. that permitted colored images to which included (probably) the be projected on the back of the The project required special very first computer kit, the NRI screen under program control, hardware to read the tapes, but 832. and a 16×16 grid infrared touch neither Gates nor Allen had any panel [Nov 27]. The 832 used around 50 TTL hardware design experience. So chips, a 16-byte diode switch they headed over to the matrix memory, and an University of Washington’s additional 16 bytes of TTL (UW) Physics building (now SRAM. Its operator’s panel held known as Mary Gates Hall) 128 switches, and offered light where they eventually found bulb outputs. Paul Gilbert, an EE student, worked in the high-energy The kit was designed by Lou tracking lab. He became a Frenzel, a long-time electronic partner in the business, and in hobbyist/maker, who later return built a microcomputer became Vice President of Heath using the newly released Intel Company, where he started 8008 [April 00] while Gates and Heathkit’s [July 00] personal Allen wrote its software.