Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books LLC

Grosvenor, D.D and H.O. Hartley.  IBM 650 Program for Linear Programming.  Statistical Laboratory, Iowa Satte University; Ames, Iow:  1960.  11x8.5 inches, 134pp (printed on one side of the sheet, only) offset mimo, staple bound.  Fine condition.  $350  There are no citings for this work in WorldCat/OCLC. 

Notes on this paper as they appear in "Linear Programming on High Speed Computers", Author(s): Rudolf J: Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 42, No. 5, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of theAmerican Farm Economic Association (Dec., 1960), pp. 1439-1444.

"1. Sorting and selection. This problem has to some degree been alleviated by the new linear programming code for the IBM 650 as developed by Hartley and Grosvenor at Iowa State University. In this program the operator has a choice of allowing the 650 to do an iteration for every positive element appearing in the simplex vector. This produces a larger number of total iterations, but the saving in time afforded by not having to look for the largest in an entire set of vectors can actually reduce the total computation time. Also, this program allows the operator to preselect certain iterations, thereby allowing a human to enter himself into the program. This is, however, done at the beginning of the program and therefore the program need not be interrupted, which, as indicated, loses a great amount of time."

"2. Storage. It is in the storage requirements that a great step forward can be made. It is possible to construct a vector (the "eta vector") of numbers which allows the transition from one iteration to the next by a
matrix vector multiplication. This has been taken advantage of, again in the Hartley-Grosvenor program from Iowa State, to reduce storage requirements. In these programs the original matrix is on cards or tape and only the eta vectors are stored on the drum. Since the size of these vectors corresponds to the number of restrictions in the problem, one can store a large number of vectors, and thereby record a large number of iterations in the storage capacity of most computers. This advantage is somewhat tempered by the fact that the entire matrix must be fed into the machine through an input-output device for every iteration. Since input-output is very often a limiting factor in high speed computers this presents somewhat of a disadvantage. Therefore, this approach may not be very suitable for the very fast, very large computers."

Thomson,  William.  On a Machine for the Solution of Simultaenous Linear Equations.  London:  Nature Magazine,  1878.  1st edition.  Nature, volume 19  `  Royal 8vo.  Very good condition.  Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) along with his brother James devised this early analogue computation device appearing in the December 19, 1878 issue of the great science journal Nature, occupying pp 161-162, the article being approximately 1000-words. We offer the issue, complete, with the original front wrapper and ads, removed from a larger bound volume. Also in this issue appears an interesting book review (of 3-pages) by James Clerk Maxwell, an article on the microphone by P.G. Tait (Thomson & Tait!), as well as a number of other interesting entries. The whole issue comprises 25pp. An article of the same title appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1879. James Thomson's article "On an Integrating Machine Having a New Kinemtic Principle" appears two years earlier, 1876, in the same journal.   $450.00

Rare Computer Manual, 1953.

ELECOM 100 Digital Computer Instruction Manual.  NYC:  Underwood Corporation,  1953.  1st edition.  110+ 17pp (appendix)  4to.  Very good condition.  Elecom Computer was bought by Underwood in 1953 (to become its Elecom Division) and produced three of these units (at about $60,000/unit). The Elecom was perhaps the last computer manufactured in the U.S. using vacuum tubes. The Elecom 100 was the first of the Underwood Elecom series, followed by the Elecom 120, 125, 200 and 50 (which for some reason was thus named in 1956). The are *no* listings for this manual in RLIN or OCLC. Rare.  $750

Wilkes,  Maurice V. "EDSAC: an Electronic Calculating Machine".  Cambridge:  1949.  1st printing.  Journal of  Scientific Instruments, Vol. 26, pp. 385-391.  4to.  Cloth.  Very good condition.  The University Mathematical Laboratory, Cambridge. Received 11 July 1949. Print publication: Issue 12 (December 1949)  Reprinted in Randell, Brian. 1982. Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 417-422. Bound in volume 26 (1949) of the Journal of Scientific Instruments. 426pp. 4to. Bound in the JSI light green, bevel board binding. The volume runs to 427pp; this article occupies pp 385-392. The book itself is an attractive ex-library copy, and has library rubberstamps on the top and bottoms of the page edges, and also has small white-painted call numbers on the spine bottom. Overall, a nice, fresh copy. $450  This seems to be the first report on the EDSAC once it had become operational 6 months earlier in June. Abstract. "The EDSAC is a large-scale electronic calculating machine in which ultrasonic delay units are used for storage of orders and numbers. It is serial in operation and works in the scale of two. Punched tape is used for input and a teleprinter for output. The paper describes the functions of the various units of which the machine is composed, and explains with block diagrams the manner in which orders are taken one by one from the store and executed". 

Armer, Paul.  "Attitudes Toward Intelligent Machines",  The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, September 30, 1960.  11x8 inches, 25 leaves, including 4 for references.  Offset mimeographic printing, staple-bound.  Very good condition. Scarce  when found in this format.  Probably rare.  $175    [Armer mini-bio available at the ACM Digital Library, here.]

"A BIRD IS AN INSTRUMENT WORKING ACCORDING TO MATHEMATICAL
LAW, WHICH INSTRUMENT IT IS WITHIN THE CAPACITY
OF MAN TO REPRODUCE WITH ALL ITS MOVEMENTS."  Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

"This is an attempt to analyze attitudes and arguments brought forth by questions like "Can machines think?" and "Can machines exhibit intelligence?" Its purpose is to improve the climate which surrounds research in the field of machine or artificial intelligence. Its goal is not to convince those who answer the above questions negatively that they are wrong (although an attempt will be made to refute some of the negative arguments) but that they should be tolerant of research investigating these questions. The negative attitudes existent today tend to inhibit such research (MacGowan, I960).

So starts Paul Armer's RAND Corporation paper "Attitudes Toward Intelligent Machines", (P-2114, September 30, 1960), published separately in Santa Monica and reprinted in Feigenbaum & Feldman classic work on classic papers in the history of computing, Comuters and Thought (and available in full, here), though there are differences in the online version and the one offered here.  (Another very slightly different version appeared in Datamation in 1963).

[Hagelin.] The Hagelin Cryptographers, an Analysis, CONFIDENTIAL. 

New York: Ericsson Telephone, 1942. 28pp Very good condition. Mimeographed sheets, stapled.  11x8, 19pp. Offset, typed document. Stamped "Accessions Division, Nov 11, 1942, Library of Congress". With an accompanying cover letter with the rubberstamp of Ericsson Telephone, Sales Corp, NYC., and dated July 3, 1942.  $650

This is a general report on the origin, development and status of the Hagelin "cryptographers"-a word used here to describe the physical machines (rather than the people working on codes).

Sections in the document include:"Models Built at Express Demand of the French Authorities", "Evolution of Hand Cryptographer Type C-362", "Hagelin Cryptographer Models" (BC-38 and C-362), "Methods of Operation", "Superiority of Hagelin Cryptographers over Competing Makes", and others, including a final section "How to Sell Cryptographers".

There is a mention of the "Enigma" machine on page 14, which is limited to mentioning that it is not sold outside of Germany.

Shannon,  Claude.  Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems.  NYC:  ATT,  1949.  The Bell System Technical Journal, vol 27, October 1949, No. 4  8vo.  Original printed wrappers.  Fine condition.  The great standard and first classic modern paper on computers and cryptology. This is an excellent copy of this work, with only a short tear at the top of the spine and some slight fading around the wrapper edges. (The rich and dark blue wrappers used by Bell for this publication just didn't stand up to the test of time--here, even not exposed to any light or use for years, the wrappers still have started to fade. This is about as good a copy as one could hope for. There is a rubber stamped date on the front wrapper (Nov 30 1949).   $600

Original Photograph of the WWII Director of Science Research and Grandfather of the Internet

Vannevar Bush.  Original photograph, 8x10 inches, by the photographic studio "Hessler", with "Hessler" signed in pencil in clear margin at bottom right. Housed in the original card-stock, embossed photo-holder. Outer folder is in Good condition; photograph is excellent. $450

Lovely portrait of Bush and his wife, taken I feel shortly after WWII.  Bush was of legendary importance to the United States during WWII. 

\Vannevar (pronounced “van ee var”) was a flinty no-nonsense New Englander who was an organizational and mechanical genius who as a professor at MIT developed a remarkable analog computer that greatly advance computation capacities for solving differential equations.  This was in the 1930’s, and even after creating an improved electromechanical version of the machine still chose the wrong way to go in the soon-to-materialize digital computer revolution.  During WWII Bush was one of the most important Americans in the war effort, overseeing the entire scientific effort of the U.S.—an enormous effort dispatched beautifully (and successfully).  His importance in this regard is difficult to overstate.

A Pictorial Manual on Computers, 1957

Computers and Automation, issue December 1957, vol 6, no. 12.  36pp.  Original printed wrappers, removed from larger bound volume.  $95

This lovely illustrated story appears in the December 1957 issue of Edmund Berkeley's Computers and Automation, which was the world's first semi-popular magazine devoted to the computer.  The article is divided into questioned sections, including:

 "What is 'Operating a Computer' Like?,  showing the "new Computing Center" at the famous Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, the place where most of modern computing in America was born in 1944/5/6. 

JF Ptak Science Books  

William Shockley.  Electrons aand Holes in Semiconductors with Applications to Transistor Electronics.  November, 1951, Van Nostrand, second printing (following hte first of November 1950).  558pp. A fine copy in a very good copy of the book's very scarce dustjacket.  $300  This was the early bible of all books on semiconductors.
_____.  Another copy.  1956.   Fine copy.  SIxth printing.  $125