Browsing by Subject "Univac computer"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Oral history interview with Earl Edgar Masterson
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1986) Masterson, Earl (Earl Edgar)
    Masterson begins by describing his early life and work with Radio Corporation of America. He then recounts his job interview with J. Presper Eckert and Fraser Welch and his work with the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, especially his work with the UNIVAC and his design of a functional high-speed printer. He also discusses James H. Rand and Remington-Rand's management of Eckert-Mauchly after the firm's acquisition. He concludes with a review of his work for Honeywell and development of high-speed printers there.
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    Oral history interview with Isaac Levin Auerbach
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1978-04-10) Auerbach, Isaac L. (Isaac Levin), 1921-1992
    Auerbach recounts his experiences at Electronic Control Company (later the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company) in the period 1947-1949. He emphasizes the economic and practical infeasibility of the BINAC computer project for Northrop Aircraft. Auerbach also discusses the UNIVAC, including personalities, politics, and its technical features. The roles of the National Bureau of Standards, Northrop Aircraft, Raytheon, Remington Rand, and IBM are brought into a perspective relative to the development of the UNIVAC.
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    Oral history interview with J. Presper Eckert
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1977-10-28) Eckert, J. Presper (John Presper), 1919-
    Eckert, a co-inventor of the ENIAC, discusses its development at the University of Pennsylvania and the interaction of the personnel at the Moore School. He describes the difficulty in securing patent rights for the ENIAC and the problems posed by John G. Brainerd, the first director of the project, and by the circulation of John von Neumann's 1945 First Draft of the Report on EDVAC, which placed the ENIAC inventions in the public domain. Eckert claims that von Neumann had an interest in keeping these ideas from becoming patented, and deaccentuates von Neumann's role in the development of the EDVAC. Eckert also discusses the ethical questions that were raised by the corporate funding of the University of Pennsylvania's computer research, and relates the reasons leading to his and John Mauchly's resignation from the faculty.
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    Oral history interview with J. Presper Eckert, Kathleen Mauchly, William Cleaver, and James McNulty
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1980-01-23) Cleaver, William; Eckert, J. Presper (John Presper), 1919-; Mauchly, Kathleen; McNulty, James
    The interviewees describe their experiences at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering in the 1940s. Eckert outlines disputes he and John Mauchly had with the University administration over the assignment of patent rights to the ENIAC, and disputes over other issues with John G. Brainerd, the first director of the ENIAC project. Eckert and McNulty share their views on John von Neumann's influence on the ENIAC and EDVAC projects. The group discusses the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand litigation and the judgement against Eckert and Mauchly's patent claim to the electronic digital computer. They uniformly dispute the court's finding in favor of John V. Atanasoff's contribution. Other topics include: the use of the ENIAC in atomic bomb tests, and the programming and memory systems of the ENIAC, EDVAC, and UNIVAC.
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    Oral history interview with John William Mauchly
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1973-11-13) Mauchly, John W. (John William), 1907-1980
    Address given at Sperry Univac's 1973 Point of View meeting in Rome. Mauchly discusses his early use of computers at Ursinus College in weather prediction and his determination that calculators using vacuum tubes to function at much higher speeds were feasible. He recounts his move to the Moore School of Electrical Engineering and his failure to interest anyone other than J. Presper Eckert in his research. He explains how they were able to obtain funding to build the ENIAC, the first electronic digital calculator, only after proposing its use for ballistic calculations. Finally, he describes the funding of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation UNIVAC computer by the National Bureau of Standards.
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    Oral history interview with Lyn Gardner Esbenson
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2015-12-07) Esbenson, Lyn Gardner
    Lyn Esbenson describes her career in computing which began in 1959, shortly after her graduation from Colorado College, when she went to work in Pennsylvania for PPG Industries programming a UNIVAC I. Two years later she returned to Colorado and helped develop a magazine fulfillment and addressing system for Esquire Magazine, subsequently reorganized as NeoData and eventually purchased by EDS. Programming and project management are key topics of her career. This material is based on work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award B2014-07 “Tripling Women’s Participation in Computing (1965-1985).”
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    Oral history interview with Margaret R. Fox
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1984-04-13) Fox, Margaret R.
    Fox describes how her Navy service in World War II led to a career in computing. She discusses the negotiations between the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), as an agent for the Bureau of the Census, over the completion of the first UNIVAC computer, and the development at NBS of SEAC and SWAC. Fox recounts her involvement in the National Joint Computer Committee which led to her work in the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) and describes the role of AFIPS in the International Information Processing Conference in Paris in 1959.
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    Oral history interview with Paul Armer
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1981-06-01) Armer, Paul
    Armer discusses three major topics. He begins with an outline of the history of computers in industry, devoting special attention to changes in business affected by technological innovations. He describes the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC of Remington Rand, and explains how International Business Machines (IBM) entered the computer business later than a number of other companies, but became the industry leader through its marketing strategies. Armer next turn to his career at the Rand Corporation. He describes the JOHNNIAC computer built at Rand and the equipment they purchased from IBM. Armer concludes with an overview of hardware and software innovations since 1957. Topics include: the standardization of software brought about by IBM's 1957 introduction of the first high-level programming language (FORTRAN), the increased communication among businesses about program compatibility, the emergence of the software industry in the 1960s, the proliferation of computer applications since 1950 that have accompanied the vast decreases in the size and cost of computer equipment, and the social impact of computers.
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    Oral history interview with Uta C. Merzbach
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1980-09-15) Merzbach, Uta C., 1933-
    Merzbach provides a brief overview of the history of electronic computing. She begins with the early projects in the 1940s that grew out of the need for advanced military technology, such as the ENIAC, the EDVAC, the Institute for Advanced Study computer, and the Whirlwind computer. She touches on the transition from military to commercial computers, with the UNIVAC of Eckert and Mauchly and International Business Machine's 650 and 700 series. She discusses early memory systems (mercury delay line, Williams electrostatic storage tube, Selectron tube, and magnetic drum) and how they were all superseded by the magnetic core in the 1950s. Merzbach also cites the development of FORTRAN, the first high-level programming language.
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    Oral history interview with Walter Leonard Anderson
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1986-09-11) Anderson, Walter L. (Walter Leonard), 1922-
    Anderson, who had been trained by the Navy at MIT and at the University of Minnesota, began working for ERA in 1946. He was hired by Joseph Walsh and worked with Howard Daniels, Frank Mullaney, and George Hardenbergh on engineering design problems. Anderson talks about a number of early design projects at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, including design of a relay control circuit and a time delay scramble. He discusses the influence that Arnold Cohen had on him. In 1949 Anderson moved to the Arlington office where he worked until 1955. He worked with the sales office as a technical liaison under Herbert H. Goodman. He worked on development of UNIVAC and the 1100 series, and he discusses some of the applications that he was involved in assessing and the technological constraints of the time. Anderson was also a liaison between the Minnesota group and the Pennsylvania group, and he discusses projects in which he worked with John Coombs, William Norris, William Overn, William Butler, Robert Torrey, Ted Bonn, and Herb Rickards. He discusses the change in operations when ERA was changed from a subsidiary to a division of Remington Rand. Anderson also discusses the establishment of General Kinetics, Inc. with Robert Gutterman, Al Roberts, Frank McKutcheon, and William Goggins. The interview concludes with remarks on the nature of their early consulting work in mathematics, engineering, and the film industry.
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    UNIVAC conference
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1990-05) Woltman, Richard D.; Woltman, Frances B.; Wilson, Louis D.; Tonik, Albert B.; Swearingen, John K.; Shuler, Cecil M.; Sberro, Joseph E.; Sammet, Jean E., 1928-; Matter, H. W.; Marquardt, Donald W.; Koons, Florence K.; Huff, Morgan W.; Holberton, Frances E.; Hammer, Carl, 1914-2004; Dixon, Donald B.; Delves, Eugene L.; Danehower, George; Chinitz, M. Paul; Carter, Lee S.; Bartik, Jean; Armstrong, Lancelot W.; Armstrong, Dorothy P.; Adams, Armand E.
    The introduction of the UNIVAC computer is among those subjects in the history of computing that has received wide attention. The issues and sequence of events leading to the development of the UNIVAC have been covered in such writings as Nancy Stern's "From ENIAC to UNIVAC" and Herman Lukoff's "From Dits to Bits," and was the subject of the 1981 AFIPS Pioneer Day. However, less attention has been devoted to the place of the UNIVAC from approximately 1952 to 1956, after its initial development. A two-day oral history conference was convened in May 1990 to examine the role and effect of the UNIVAC on computing and the computer industry in the mid-1950s. The meeting involved over twenty-five engineers, programmers, marketing representatives, and salesmen who were involved with the UNIVAC, as well as customers who had worked with the machine. Many of these persons were key to the development and use of the computer, although this was the first time that most had been part of the historical analysis of the UNIVAC. Of particular note was the attendance of individuals from General Electric and Arthur Andersen. Both firms were early purchasers of the UNIVAC and had an important influence on the sale of UNIVACs to other businesses. Also represented in the group was the U.S. Census, which purchased the first UNIVAC from Remington Rand. The conference was organized and supported by the Unisys Corporation in concert with the Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) and the Smithsonian Institution. Anne Frantilla, corporate archivist for Unisys, was responsible for developing the conference and bringing together the participants. The Smithsonian hosted and recorded the conference. CBI undertook the production of this transcript, and has added the audio tape(s)s to its oral history collection. Editing of this transcript has been minimal. The text was altered only when an exact transcript of the spoken word did not adequately convey the intended meaning. More substantive changes and editorial remarks are enclosed in square brackets ([ ]). Also note that "UNIVAC" (all caps) conveys the computer, and "Univac" generally means the Univac Division of Remington Rand, later Sperry Rand. The editing of this transcript is unlike other oral interviews conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute in that participants were not given a chance to review their comments. The number of participants simply made CBI's standard practice infeasible. However, John Swearingen and Frances and Richard Woltman graciously agreed to review the transcript, and most of their recommendations were incorporated in the final transcript. Bruce Bruemmer edited the transcript. Participants include: Armand E. Adams, Dorothy P. Armstrong, Lancelot W. Armstrong, Jean Bartik, Lee S. Carter, M. Paul Chinitz, George Danehower, Eugene L. Delves, Donald B. Dixon, Carl Hammer, Frances Elizabeth Holberton, Morgan W. Huff, Florence K. Koons, Donald W. Marquardt, H. W. Matter, Jean E. Sammet, Joseph E. Sberro, Cecil M. Shuler, John K. Swearingen, Albert Tonik, Louis D. Wilson, Frances B. Woltman, Richard D. Woltman. Moderators include: Paul Ceruzzi, Bernard A. Galler, Michael S. Mahoney, Arthur L. Norberg, Robert F. Rosin, and Henry S. Tropp.