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Rare Block Diagrams for the UNIVAC (1950)

 

The UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was the first commercially-available electronic computer, and the first computer to handle both numeric and alphabetic information, produced by Remington Rand, and  came into working service at the Bureau of the Census in 1951.  It was designed by John Mauchly and Pres Eckert Jr, who also worked together in the design and construction of the first digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (the famous ENIAC). The UNIVAC was a Big Boy: 25'x50', with 5,600 tubes, and 18,000 crystal diodes--given its workhorse nature and general success, by 1957 there were 46 UNIVACs in operation. 

The following are working block diagrams of sections of the UNIVAC, produced by some sort of early offset process in 1950, slightly before the computer came to its working life.  I have a number of sections of the computer represented in this way, but not the entire machine--but what is here may be of interest to historians of computer science.

18 sheets representing seven sections of the computer: $1750.

Including:

[Supervisory Control Panel]

• 1.  The Supervisory Control Panel (2 sheets of 3, including center and left third, both undated but assumed to be 1950 like all of the others. [Shown above]

• 2.  Uniservo Control Circuits. 3 sheets of 3.  All dated 8/10/50.

• 3.  Output Synchronizer. 4 sheets of 4.  Dated 8/1/50 through 8/4/50.

• 4.  Input Synchronizer.  4 sheets of 4.  Dated 8/1/50 to 11/9/50. 

• 5.  Control Register.  1 sheet of 1.  6/21/50.

• 6.  High Speed Bus Amplifier and Sample Memory Channel.  1 sheet of 1. 6/21/50

• 7.  Input-Output Control Circuits, 3 of 3 sheets,  8/7/50

 

The UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was the first commercially-available electronic computer, and the first computer to handle both numeric and alphabetic information, produced by Remington Rand, and  came into working service at the Bureau of the Census in 1951.  It was designed by John Mauchly and Pres Eckert Jr, who also worked together in the design and construction of the first digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (the famous ENIAC). The UNIVAC was a Big Boy: 25'x50', with 5,600 tubes, and 18,000 crystal diodes--given its workhorse nature and general success, by 1957 there were 46 UNIVACs in operation. 

The following are working block diagrams of sections of the UNIVAC, produced by some sort of early offset process in 1950, slightly before the computer came to its working life.  I have a number of sections of the computer represented in this way, but not the entire machine--but what is here may be of interest to historians of computer science.

18 sheets representing seven sections of the computer: $1750.

Including:

[Supervisory Control Panel]

• 1.  The Supervisory Control Panel (2 sheets of 3, including center and left third, both undated but assumed to be 1950 like all of the others. [Shown above]

• 2.  Uniservo Control Circuits. 3 sheets of 3.  All dated 8/10/50.

• 3.  Output Synchronizer. 4 sheets of 4.  Dated 8/1/50 through 8/4/50.

• 4.  Input Synchronizer.  4 sheets of 4.  Dated 8/1/50 to 11/9/50. 

• 5.  Control Register.  1 sheet of 1.  6/21/50.

• 6.  High Speed Bus Amplifier and Sample Memory Channel.  1 sheet of 1. 6/21/50

• 7.  Input-Output Control Circuits, 3 of 3 sheets,  8/7/50

 

Superior Single-Sheet Guide to Major Characteristics of Leading Computers, 1956

A.J. Perlis and John Carrs  Characteristics of the Small-Scale Computers. 11x8”, 4pp. Product Engineering-Project Design Digest, offprint, “Mid-October”, 1956. The article first appeared in Control Engineering, March 1956. 

This pamphlet looked innocent enough, 12" tall and one folded piece of paper, and published in 1956, but there was a lot more to the simple publication than you'd expect from something so modest. The authors--John W. Carr III and Alan J. Perlis--were heavy hitters, and so I really wasn't very surprised to see what they had done "inside", though I was impressed and happy to see the data. Displayed on the 11"x16" sheet of paper are 15 data points on 14 computers, many of them classic/famous:  the 650 IBM, UNIVAC, Elecom, Alawac.  (Remember that when you're looking at purchase price and monthly rental amounts that the 1956 dollar is equal to about $8.70 in 2015 dollars, so that $3275/month for the 650 would be about $30k.  The $136k for the Datatron is about a million today.)   

  

Computers, Nuclear Warfare, and Afterwards (1964)

UNIVAC, Division of Sperry Rand Corporation, presents INSIGHT.  Carbon copy transcript of a broadcast on Radio Station WGMS, Washington D.C., April 13, 1964.  8 leaves on onionskin paper. Fine copy. Two horizontal folds. $400

This title may sound overly dramatic, but it really isn't. As part of the Mutually Assured Destruction game plan there was an absolute necessity for calculating the leftovers from a nuclear exchange in order to convince the aggressor nation (which of course in 1964 would be the Soviet Union) that in spite of massive destruction the U.S. would be situated to carry out acting as a government/society/military in the post-war world. Part of figuring all of that out would entail a massive amount of bean counting for personnel, materiel, natural resources, and so on in a nearly endless list of stuff that runs the U.S., and then figuring out where it all was, and how it would/could be affected by a nuclear strike at X^X locations, and that with different yields, and weather patterns, and so on, on into the night, of how a nuclear attack of x-capacity would affect the tactical and strategic and social base of the U.S.  So you'd have to gather all of that data, and then lay it all on in X^X scenarios that would all be played out in computer simulations.  

And that is what this interview is all about--explained on the radio to a general listening audience by Joseph Coker, who was at the time chief of the NREC (the National Resource Evaluation Center). All of this made its own crazy sense, and all of it had to be done, running both towards and away from the black hole that did and didn't exist.  

 

This title may sound overly dramatic, but it really isn't. As part of the Mutually Assured Destruction game plan there was an absolute necessity for calculating the leftovers from a nuclear exchange in order to convince the aggressor nation (which of course in 1964 would be the Soviet Union) that in spite of massive destruction the U.S. would be situated to carry out acting as a government/society/military in the post-war world. Part of figuring all of that out would entail a massive amount of bean counting for personnel, materiel, natural resources, and so on in a nearly endless list of stuff that runs the U.S., and then figuring out where it all was, and how it would/could be affected by a nuclear strike at X^X locations, and that with different yields, and weather patterns, and so on, on into the night, of how a nuclear attack of x-capacity would affect the tactical and strategic and social base of the U.S.  So you'd have to gather all of that data, and then lay it all on in X^X scenarios that would all be played out in computer simulations.  

And that is what this interview is all about--explained on the radio to a general listening audience by Joseph Coker, who was at the time chief of the NREC (the National Resource Evaluation Center). All of this made its own crazy sense, and all of it had to be done, running both towards and away from the black hole that did and didn't exist.  

 

“Hand it Over to the Machine” (1878)

 

SPOTTISWOODE, William. (William Spottiswoode, 1825-1883, an English mathematician and physicist, president of the Royal Society from 1878 to 1883, and of the British (Science) Association in 1878 as well.) “British Association”, address on the state of the British Association by the president, in Nature, vol 18, no. 459, occupying most of the weekly issue, pp 403-425 in the issue of pp 401-428. Detached from larger bound volume, but offered with the original wrappers (including 11 pages of advertising, some of which is fantastic). Good/VG condition. $300.00

There's a lot of interest in this review and state of affairs of the sciences and technology, including sections on Mathematics, Literature and Art, Physics Measurements, Manifold Space, Imaginaries, a full page on Non-Euclidean Geometry, and more.

Of particular interest to me is the half-column entry for “Mechanical Methods” (on page 413), which turns out to be “mechanical appliances”, or calculating machines/engines. It starts with an unusual assertion:

“Mr Babbage, when speaking of the difficulty of insuring accuracy in the long numerical calculations of theoretical astronomy, remarked that that “most accurate science” had become “inaccurate and uncertain in some of its results”.

Spottiswoode continues with an explanation and a dig: “It is doubtless, some such consideration as this, coupled with his dislike of employing skilled labour when unskilled labour would suffice, which led him to his invention o the calculating machine”.

The author then makes another—again, to my experience—unusual observation, referring to the replacement of human thinking capacity by a machine:

“The idea of substituting mechanized for intellectual power has not lain dormant...”

It is a very short comment, but I think makes a strong if understated point.

The author then moves onto the “recent” machine of James Thomson (“by its aid it seems an unskilled laborer may, in a given time, perform the work of ten skilled arithmeticians...reduced to the simple process of turning a handle”.

Spottiswoode finishes with a flourish, though it is easy to read through. In telling the story of Michael Faraday, who after muscling through some concept and determining that the next step wopuld be to hammer it all out mathematically, would “irreverently “ say “hand it over to the calculators”, which at that point was a team of human calculators, arithmeticians.

And the finish:

“But truth is stranger than fiction; and if he had lived until our day, he might with perfect propriety have said, 'Hand it over to the machine' ”.

It is a small statement with a lot of possibility. Even though this comes seven years after Babbage gave up the ghost in Marleybone, it still seems remarkably early to be talking about this sort of major impact in the conduct of the sciences, lending part of the process over to machines. The Industrial Revolution is well into it second century by this point, and human effort in all manner of manufacturing has been replaced by machines—except here the active part of the human experience in the creation of ideas is the thing that is becoming “machinized”.

Maxwell and the Human Calculating Machine (1870)

MAXWELL,  James Clerk.  Mathematical and Physical Sciences--address to Section A of the British Association.  London:  1870.  1st edition.  Nature, vol 2, Sept 22, 1870  8vo.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good condition.  Maxwell addresses the British Science Association meeting in a long (for Nature) entry of about 4,000 words, over 4 pages. We offer the entire issue of 20pp, with their very scarce original wrappers, detached from a larger bound volume.      $225

What I find to be most interesting here is Maxwell pulling back the reins and directing the idea of clear scientific discourse by means of analogy. He does speak of "calculating" and "calculating machine", which is referring to human calculators and not mechanical ones--the issue being that "spending a season" doing this stubborn and consuming work could turn the person occupied with in into a "machine". He writes: 

"What the man of science, whether he be a mathematician or a physical inquirer, aims to do, to acquire and develop clear ideas of the things he deals with. For this purpose he is willing to enter on long calculations, and to be for a season a calculating machine., if he can only at last make his ideas clearer."

"But if he finds that clear ideas are not obtained by the means of processes,  the steps of which he is sure to forget before he has reached the conclusion, it is much better that he should turn to another method, and try to understand the subject by well chosen illustrations derived from subjects with which he is more familiar."

"We all know how much more popular the illustrative method of exposition is found, than that in which bare processes of reasoning and calculation form the principal subject of discourse..."

 

 

Georges Meslin Calculating Machine, 1900

Georges Meslin (1862-1918), "Sur une machine a resoudre les equations", in Comptes Rendus des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences, 2 April 1900, the weekly issue comprising pp 865-960, with the Meslin article on pp 888-891.

This issue is removed from a larger bound volume. VERY GOOD condition. $145

" 'On a machine for solving equations', by M. Georges Meslin. The machine consists of a balance carrying upon its beams at  varying distances from the point of support a series of solids of revolution, partially immersed in a liquid...."--Nature, June 14, 1900, p 579. (Interesting to note here that two thermo papers by Meslin are reviewed by Einstein in his big year of 1905.)

A Hand Held Slide Calculator, 1903

Louis-J. Troncet (b. 1850), "Sur un Calculateur mecanique appele Arithmographe", an article in Comptes rendus, March 30, 1903, volume 136 #13, pp 785-840, the paper occupying pp 807-809, with a nearly full-page image of the calculating machine. This is the entire weekly issue, offered without the outer wrappers, and removed/detached from a larger bound volume. VG copy. $145

It is hard to tell the dimensions of this instrument, but I'm guessing it was perhaps 8" tall, judging by the stylus attached to the eight of the calculator.  Troncet developed a very popular instrument in his "Arithmographe", which evidently first appeared in the late 1870's, with versions of the machine manufactured for decades, with millions sold. This device comes relatively late in the series, though it also seems to be the first offering multiplication and division.  

[Note: the scan of the device makes it seem as though there is vertical discoloration or an old fold--neither is there. This is just a shadow from not pressing down hard enough on the paper.]

 

Bollee's Calculating Machine

BOLLEE< Leon. "Sur une nouvelle machine a calculer", in  Comptes Rendus, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, November 11, 1889, volume 109, #20, pp 737-739 in the weekly issue of pp 723-774. Removed from a larger bound volume.  Good condition.  $200

 

[Source: http://www.rechnerlexikon.de/artikel/Bild:Bollee-mit-Maschine-CNAM1990.jpg]

This was a surprise, finding M. Bollee's article (Sur une nouvelle machine a calculer) in this 1889 Comptes Rendus, pecking around in that big 10-pound volume looking for something else.  It was very easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, just a few pages long in a 1000-page book.  But there it was, nestled comfortably in pp 737-739.  It these few pages Bollee describes his machine and with particular reference to his innovative approach to direct multipilication--a fine addition (ha!) to the long line of contributions by Babbage and Clement, Scheutz, Wiberg and Grant and Hamann. Bollee's device would be more popularly remembered in its incarnation in the 1890's as the relatively popular device named "The Millionaire".  

 

An image of the machine from The Manufacturer and Builder:

See:  the Making of America, http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=manu;cc=manu;rgn=full%20text;idno=manu0022-7;didno=manu0022-7;view=image;seq=0162;node=manu0022-7%3A21

 

The Abdank-Abakanowicz Integrator, 1881-2

Bruno Abdank-Abakanowicz, “Sur un integrateur. instrument servant a l'integration graphique", vol 92, no. 8, 21 February 1881, pp 402-405 in the issue of pp 373-428;Four papers developing his analytical calculating and graphing instrument in three different numbers of the Comptes Rendus (vols 92, 94, and 95), as follows, with the three papers from volumes 92 and 95 offered with their original wrappers.  All four papers are disbound from a larger bound volume. GOOD-VERY GOOD condition.   SOLD

_____. “Sur un integrateur. instrument servant a l'integration graphique", vol 92, no. 10, 7 March 1881, pp 515-519 in the issue of pp 482-538;

_____. "Sur l'integration mechanique", vol 94, no. 12, 20 March 1882, pp 783-785 in the issue of 753-816;

_____. "Sur un nouvel integrometre", vol 95, no. 22, 27 November 1882,  pp 1047-1048 in the issue of pp 1017-1076.

"Integraph, mathematical instrument for plotting the integral of a graphically defined function. Two such instruments were invented independently about 1880 by the British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys and the Lithuanian mathematician Bruno Abdank Abakanowicz and were later modified and improved by others. The integraph draws the graph of the integral as the user traces the graph of the given function."--Encyclopedia Britannica

"William Thomson. Lord Kelvin, had the powerful idea of using analog computing mechanisms tied together to solve a differential equatioms. Ten years later, AbdankAbakanowicz built an “integraph.” which had the purpose of solving one particular differential equation. Thomson’s idea was the conception of differential analyzers. which. however. did not become a practical reality until the 1930s with the work of V. Bush.’ Lord Kelvin also invented a pulley device for solving simultaneous equatioms Larger versions were built by MIT professor Wilbur in 1934 and 1935.--AB Clymer, "The mechanical analog computers of Hannibal Ford and William Newell", IEEE Annals of the History of Computers, 15/2

“The mechanical integraph is a noteworthy development in the history of calculating instruments, for it represents an early, albeit limited, analog approach to the solution of differential equations. It is worth noting that it was the need to solve partial differential equations with rapidity and accuracy that ultimately led to the development of the ENIAC...The integraph is an elaboration and extension of the planimeter, an earlier, simpler instrument used to measure area. It is a mechanical instrument capable of deriving the integral curve corresponding to a given curve. Hence, it is able to solve elementary differential equations graphically. Abdank-Abakanowicz concentrated on developing his integraph for several years. However, it was not until 1878 that he succeeded in developing a practical working model.”--from the Erwin Tomash Library site

Also see H. Morin, Les appareils d'intégration: intégrateurs simples et composés; planimètres; intégromètres; intégraphes et courbes intégrales; analyse harmonique et analyseurs,pp 136-141, for descriptions of the Abdnak-Abakanowicz machines (as referred by Tomash). The full text of the Morin is found on the Cornell University classic maths books site.  

 

Design for a Brain (1952)

W. Ross Ashby, Design for a Brain. Wiley, New York, 1952. vii, 259pp.  First edition.  Fine copy in a Very Good dust jacket. The dj has a little chip missing from the top and some bumping on the bottom spine. Very nice copy.  $150

"W. Ross Ashby (1903-1972) was an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of the science of communications and automatic control systems in both machines and living things...His two books, Design for a Brain and An Introduction to Cybernetics, were landmark works. They introduced exact and logical thinking into the brand new discipline of cybernetics and were highly influential.”--Wikipedia

"Two of the landmarks I aim to reach are Ashby’s most famous machine, the homeostat, and the book in which it featured, Design for a Brain...It has often been argued that cybernetics arose in the intersection of mathematics and engineering in World War II, taking the career of Norbert Wiener as exemplary (e.g. Heims 1991, Galison 1994). But (but there is a photograph) from the early 1950s, not unreasonably captioned ‘The four pioneers of cybernetics’, and what I find striking is that apart from Wiener, the other three pioneers – Warren McCulloch from the USA and Grey Walter and Ashby from Britain – all had strong connections to psychiatry and the brain in one way or another. This connection is largely ignored in the historical literature...”--“Psychiatry, synthetic brains and cybernetics in the work of W. Ross Ashby”, by Andrew Pickering, International Journal of General Systems , Volume 38, 2009 - Issue 2: The Intellectual Legacy of W. Ross Ashby.