In 1947 the Navy awarded ERA design, and other problems the “Task 13” contract to build involving differential equations. January the ERA Atlas for the NSA [Oct 24]. In 1950 ERA started selling this machine MTAC Begins commercially as the ERA 1101 [Dec 10], 1101 being Jan. 1943 binary for 13 of course. The first computing journal was Seymour Cray [Sept 28] probably “Mathematical Tables joined the company in and Other Aids to Computation” 1951, and his first design (MTAC), whch was founded by credit was the ERA 1103 Raymond Clare Archibald in [Oct 00]. Washington D.C. during this In 1952, Remington Rand month. [Jan 25] acquired ERA, and As the name suggests, it initially continued to sell the 1101, focussed on maths, but also although now as the found space to publish the “UNIVAC 1101”; naturally, landmark article, “The the 1103 became the “UNIVAC Electronic Numerical Integrator 1103”. Harder perusing a prototype and Computer (ENIAC)” by Anacom (1946). Photo by Edwin The ERA group within Herman H. Goldstine [Sept 13] Harder. Remington maintained close ties and Adele Goldstine [Dec 21] in to the NSA, creating the "Bogart" July 1946. for them in 1954. It was the first The Anacom continued to be By 1960, reflecting the computer to employ solid state employed until the end of the increasing obsolescence of diodes, and also used core 1980's for analyzing nonlinear tables, the journal changed its memory [May 11]. electric power systems, although name to “Mathematics of Disappointingly, it wasn't named it became increasingly unique. Computation”. after the actor Humphrey Vannevar Bush‘s [March 11] much better known differential Bogart, but John B. Bogart, city editor of The New York Sun analyzers [June 23] were all newspaper. Bogart is chiefly decommissioned by the early ERA Founded remembered for the quote: 1960's. Jan. 1946 "When a dog bites a man, that's For the oldest working digital not news. But if a man bites a computer, see [April 00]. During WWII, code-breaking dog, that's news." work in the US Navy was run by a clandestine group with the deliberately vague title, Faster Than "Communications The Anacom Supplementary Activity – Jan. 1948 Thought Washington" (CSAW). For example, CSAW was responsible Westinghouse's Edwin L. Harder Jan. 1953 for building versions of the UK's led the team that built the first The 'popular' textbook, “Faster Colossus [Jan 18] for breaking general-purpose analog than Thought: A Symposium in Japanese codes. computer, the Anacom (short for Digital Computing Machines,” ANAlog COMputer). A After the war, budgets were cut edited by Bertram Vivian description of the device by Bowden (later Baron Bowden), for most military projects, Harder and G.D. including CSAW, and the Navy was published in the UK. McCannappeared in the Jan. Bowden is sometimes called was worried that the group’s 1948 issue of AIEE Transactions. expertise would be lost. The England’s first computer answer was private enterprise – The Anacom comfortably filled a salesman due to his involvement Engineering Research 40-foot long room. It noisily in promoting the Ferranti Mark Associates, Inc. (ERA) was employed mechanical relays 1 [Feb 12]. formed in Jan. 1946. It was until 1953 when the machine The book's preface begins: based in the hangars of a former was upgraded to use vacuum “During the last year or two aircraft factory in St. Paul, tube-based switches. most people must have heard of Minnesota. Before the rise of digital the remarkable devices often The technical side of ERA was computers, the Anacom was the called “Electronic Brains”; every headed by Howard Engstrom, workhorse calculating device at schoolboy knows that there are William Norris [July 14], Ralph Westinghouse, used for oil-flow in existence some very Meader, and around forty other problems, nuclear reactor complicated machines which are former members of CSAW. capable of astounding feats of 1 arithmetic. This book contains Whirlwind I.” John Backus [Dec It was designed to sit under a descriptions of several of these 3] called it “an elegant concept (big) desk, and came with monsters…" elegantly realized.” several largish peripherals that sat on top of the desk – a tape Incidentally, the use of Laning and Zierler were reader, typewriter, tape punch, “electronic brain” had become members of Charles Adam’s [Feb and console. popular after a speech by Lord 6] Science and Engineering Louis Mountbatten [Oct 31] in Computation Group at MIT, The RECOMP II may have been 1946. which was responsible for many the first commercial of the programming firsts transistorized computer, but the “Faster than Thought" wasn’t associated with the Whirlwind. IBM 608 [Oct 7] probably the first 'popular' book on digital shipped first, in Dec. 1957, but computers (e.g. see [Feb 22], Other possibilities for first was marketed as a calculator. [March 27], and [Nov 26]), but it compiler are those for Hopper’s IBM’s first transistorized stored- was remarkable for its range of A-2 [May 00] and IBM’s program 'computer' was the contributors, a stellar cast of Speedcoding [Sept 9]. IBM 7070 from 1960, mostly British researchers, who Another caveat is that "George" introduced as part of the 7000 contributed 26 chapters wasn’t a general-purpose series [April 26]. covering the history of programming language, instead computing, and current For those of you wondering focusing on solving algebraic application areas. They included about the "II", the RECOMP I was equations. John Bennett [July 31], Tom designed for the military, and Kilburn [Aug 11], Christopher Unfortunately, "George" could completed the previous year. Strachey [Nov 16], Alan Turing generate code that took ten For the world’s first ‘mobile’ [June 23], Maurice Wilkes [June times longer to run than hand- computer, in the very general 26], and Frederic Williams [June crafted machine code for the sense of being able to move 26]. same task. It was only with about, see the DYSEAC [April FORTRAN [Dec 00] that this Turing and Strachey 00]. For the first mass-produced problem of speed vs. abstraction collaborated on a chapter about portable microcomputer, see was solved. games, which looked at chess [April 3]. [June 25], draughts (checkers), and Nim (specifically the inner workings of the Nimrod [May RECOMP II is 5]). RPG Introduced Appendix 1 was a copy of Ada Portable Jan. 1961 Lovelace’s [Dec 10] “Sketch of Jan. 1958 In 1959, IBM assigned the task the Analytical Engine Invented of designing software for by Charles Babbage . with The Autonetics RECOMP II was ordinary business users to Notes by the Translator” [July an early transistorized Barbara Wood and Bernard 10], the first account in English computer, which was proudly Silkowitz. Their answer was of Babbage’s [Dec 26] Analytical advertised as being ‘portable’. "Report Program Generator" Engine [Dec 23]. However, the computer weighed around 200 pounds, and was 4.7 (RPG), introduced a few months The book remained in print until cubic feet large. Tellingly, the after the first IBM 1401's [Oct 5] 1968. ads showed two men carrying it had shipped. across a building site. A user filled out “specification sheets” for a business problem, George in the such as a payroll calculation which listed the input, the Whirlwind output format, and the calculation to be executed in Jan. 1954 between. The “Algebraic System” RPG was part of an attempt to (sometimes known as “George”) move customers away from IBM was perhaps the first compiler Electric Accounting Machine for a “high-level” language, in (EAM) equipment, towards that it translated mathematical computers. IBM's flagship EAM formulae into machine code. product was the 407, which goes "George" was implemented by J. some way to explaining RPG's Halcombe Laning and Neal design. RPG parallelled how a Zierler on the Whirlwind [April user had to wire a 407’s control 20], and described in “A panel which had specific areas Program for Translation of Part of a Autonetics Recomp II for input, calculations, and Mathematical Equations for ad (1958). Evan Koblentz. (c) output. North American Aviation, Inc. 2 for talking about a called AI winter [Oct 28] of the Dial F for minicomputer is probably due to late 1980's. DEC's John Leng [Aug 26], by In particular, Minsky and Papert Frankenstein way of fashion designer, Mary rejected the use of multi-layer Quant. Jan. 1964 neural nets, which they termed a “Dial F For Frankenstein” a short “sterile” extension of the story by Arthur C. Clarke [Dec perceptron idea. This was before 16], appeared in the Jan. 1964 Perceptrons it was realized just how issue of Playboy magazine. It powerful such multi-layer recounts how a complex Published extensions actually were. telephone network becomes Jan. 1969 The book's hypnotic cover (pink sentient, and thereafter causes spirals on a neon red global chaos. Namely, “At 0150 “Perceptrons: an Introduction to background) refers to one of the GMT on December 1, 1975, Computational Geometry” was perceptron's limitations – every telephone in the world written by Marvin Minsky [Aug defining a function that correctly started to ring”! Next day will 9] and Seymour Papert [Feb 29]. determines a shape's see chaos all over - radio It should not be confused with connectedness. stations shutting down, stock the revised edition from 1987, markets and banks shutting which spent a considerable Frank Rosenblatt [July 7] down, traffic signaling systems number of pages addressing the published the first paper on down, electricity grid behaving criticisms of this first edition. perceptrons in 1958. He and erratically, military weapons Minsky knew each other at the launched without human Bronx High School of Science. authorization, planes almost Minsky later compared the first crashing, …" edition of his and Papert's book At some point, Tim Berners-Lee to the fictional "Necronomicon" [June 8] read the story (perhaps in H.