Oral history interview with Arnold Dumey

Abstract

The Dumey interview begins with a description of his work for the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He discusses the development of a system for comparing data for which Eastman Kodak supplied a contrast reversal film process and Reed Research a reading device. He also considers some of the problems inherent in working for a secret organization. In the post-war period, he focuses on the contractual work done by Engineering Research Associates for the Navy, emphasizing their engineering excellence and the leverage that their competitive position gave him in his negotiations for the Navy with IBM. He highlights the roles of John L. Hill and William Norris in ERA, and contrasts the ERA 1101 with the Standards Electronic Automatic Computer (SEAC). He concludes with a discussion of the obsolescence of electrostatic tube and delay-line memory devices with the introduction of magnetic cores.