JF Ptak Science Books
I've found an unusual, informal document; a rough, manuscript outline for a consideration on the computing capacities at Fort Detrick, in Frederick Maryland. Fort Detrick is a Medical Command, and was the seat of research for the United States' biological weapons program (1943–69), and which is today a large facility (on 1,200 acres) devoted to biomedical research, the "U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), with its bio-defense agency, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)", as well as medical materiel management and global medical communications.
The 5-page document: $300.00
The document ("Computer Requirements/Statistics Branch/Fort Detrick Maryland") is handwritten by the former chief statistician around 1957, and in five tight pages outlines the basic necessities for the needs of computing facilities at the fort. The document mentions two machines in particular, the "409-2" (with is the Remington Rand 409-2, an ENIAC style machine, produced in 1952) and the UNIVAC 120 (which is a release of the 409-2, done in 1953).
The UNIVAC 120: "The Remington Rand 409 control panel programmed punched card calculator, designed in 1949, was sold in two models: the UNIVAC 60 (1952) and the UNIVAC 120 (1953). The model number referred to the number of decimal digits of vacuum tube memory storage provided for data.".-- Universal Automatic Computer Model 120 A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems Report No. 1115, March 1961 by Martin H. Weik (engl.)
Enjoy the rest of the previously unpublished document, below:
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