Browsing by Subject "Massachusetts Institute of Technology. -- Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science"

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    Oral history interview with Joseph F. Traub
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1985-03-29) Traub, J. F. (Joseph Frederick), 1932-
    The main topic is institutions in computing. Traub begins by discussing why computer science has developed as a discipline at some institutions but not others. Institutions that are highlighted include Stanford, Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and Carnegie-Mellon. Traub discusses his experiences as chairman of the computer science departments at Carnegie-Mellon and later Columbia. Other topics include: industrial and government funding of computer science departments (in particular the role of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Defense Department); the relationships between academic centers, such as MIT, Stanford, Columbia, and Carnegie-Mellon; and the importance of educational institutions to regional centers of industrial computing. At the end of the interview Traub returns to a topic of his earlier interviews, his experiences at Bell and Watson Laboratories.
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    Oral history interview with Robert E. Mumma
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1984-04-19) Mumma, Robert E.
    Mumma describes National Cash Register's (now NCR) early years in the electronic computing industry. Mumma went to work for NCR in 1939 in their newly formed Electronic Research Department. Before the war he designed gas thyratron tubes for use as decimal counters in an electronic calculator, a working model of which was completed before the war. Mumma discusses the contact NCR had during this period with MIT and Harvard, and reviews some of the early research projects and personnel at NCR. He describes in guarded terms work NCR did before the war for NDRC on a secret communication system and during the war on a high speed counter for measuring muzzle velocity of cannon shells. He recounts how war-time work on cryptanalytic equipment took all the company's effort, and how this shaped company policy resisting government contract work after the war. The second half of the interview describes NCR's move into commercial electronic computing in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, with such products as cash registers with punched tape, accounting machines with electronic multiplier, high-speed printers, bar code readers, point-of-sale terminals, and magnetic ink character recognition equipment. Mumma explains how NCR considered purchasing the Eckert-Mauchly Company prior to its acquisition of Computer Research Corporation, as a way of entering the computer field. The division of labor between NCR-Dayton and the NCR-CRC division are considered, as are the difficulties of promoting, developing, and marketing electronic technology in the mechanically-oriented environment of NCR headquarters in Dayton.