1951 Proceeding- Conference Chair:
- J. C. McPherson
The AIEE-IRE Computer Conference met on December 10-12, 1951, at Philadelphia to discuss the characteristics and performance of working, large-scale, electronic digital computers.
The conference was arranged by a joint committee appointed early in 1951 by the Committee on Computing Devices of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Electronic Computers Committee of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
It was felt that the development of these machines had reached a point where useful engineering information could be drawn from the experience of the designers and users of these machines and that a published account of these machines, assembled in a report of this meeting, would be of permanent value in the development of engineering knowledge of this new field of activity.
The joint committee invited the co-operation of the Association for Computing Machinery, and representatives of that organization joined in the planning of the meeting and participated in the conference.
The extent of interest in the subject can be appreciated from the attendance at the conference, which totalled 877 members.
Descriptions of ten large-scale electronic computers of varying design and performance were presented, giving a cross-section of the varying designs to date of both parallel and serial types of electronic computers using storage devices including mercury delay lines, magnetic drums, and cathode-ray tubes. Other papers discussed detailed operating and component experience on certain of these calculators, and the final session summarized the present state of computer development and indicated some of the future possibilities of the Transistor in computer design.
At the luncheon meeting on the last day of the conference, an inspiring picture of the rapidly expanding use of large-scale computers in engineering design and analysis of our new airplanes, both commercial and military, gave the members of the conference a better understanding of the ultimate usefulness of their efforts,
During the conference, inspection trips gave many of the participants an opportunity to view the UNIVAC and the Burroughs Computer, and to visit the computer activities of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania and of the Technitrol Engineering Company.
Proceeding Downloads
Keynote address
My purpose here at this conference is to provide a background, first for meetings like this on subjects dealing with computers, and second, for this particular meeting. My qualifications for keynoting are, I think, as good as those of anyone here: as ...
The UNIVAC system
In March 1951, the first UNIVAC system formally passed its acceptance tests and was put promptly into operation by the Bureau of the Census. Since the UNIVAC is the first computer which can handle both alphabetic and numerical data to reach full-scale ...
Performance of the census UNIVAC system
In June of 1948 the National Bureau of Standards acting on behalf of the Bureau of the Census contracted with the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation for a UNIVAC System. This UNIVAC System, now generally known as the Census UNIVAC System, was accepted ...
The Burroughs laboratory computer
In early 1950 the Research Division of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company developed a need for a computing installation of moderate size which would, among other objectives:
1. Serve as a proving ground for new ideas and devices.
2. Provide data on ...
The IBM card-programmed electronic calculator
Tracking a guided missile on a test range now is the only way to make sure of its performance. At one Department of Defense facility this is done by planting batteries of cameras or photo-theodolites along a 100-mile course. During its flight, the ...
The ORDVAC
The ORDVAC is a general purpose machine which has been built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistic Research Laboratories at Aberdeen, Maryland. The design has followed in a general way that of the computing machine discussed by Burks, ...
Design features of the ERA 1101 computer
The ERA 1101 computer is a single-address binary-system parallel computer using magnetic drum memory. The word length is 24 binary digits, equivalent to seven decimal digits plus sign. The logic is quite conventional.
The operation and logic of the MARK III electronic calculator in view of operating experience
Mark III is a large scale electronic digital computer of the serial number storage type. It contains over 5,000 vacuum tubes and over 2,000 relays. All components are of the plug-in type and are plugged into removable chassis. Each chassis is plugged ...
The University of Manchester computing machine
The computing machine which now is operating at the University of Manchester, represents the culmination of a research project of several years' standing. It seems appropriate to outline the various steps in the development of this project, since these ...
The design, construction, and performance of a large-scale general-purpose digital computer
The PRINCIPLES OF operation of the computer to be discussed in this paper have been described in the paper by Dr. T. Kilburn. The basic techniques required for the design and construction of a satisfactory computer were developed by Professor F. C. ...
The Whirlwind I computer
Project Whirlwind is a high-speed computer activity sponsored at the Digital Computer Laboratory, formerly a part of the Servomechanisms Laboratory, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) by the Office of Naval Research (O.N.R.) and the ...
Evaluation of the engineering aspects of Whirlwind I
The Whirlwind system is an expanding one now adding terminal equipment such as magnetic tapes, drums, and scopes. The core of the system including control, memory, and arithmetic element now has been running long enough to make an engineering evaluation ...
The EDSAC computer
The invitation to speak to this conference about the EDSAC was particularly welcome to me because the foundations of my knowledge of electronic computers were laid during a visit to Philadelphia in the summer of 1946 when I attended part of a course at ...
The National Bureau of Standards eastern automatic computer
Some of you undoubtedly recall hearing reports during 1949 on the progress of the Interim Computer at the Washington Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards. The program to develop that computer was proposed and explored during the summer of 1948 ...
Engineering experience with the SEAC
From the time of its early planning phases the SEAC program at the National Bureau of Standards has had a dual purpose. One objective has been, of course, the provision of a tool for use in the solution of problems in calculation, but a second and ...
Computing machines in aircraft engineering
I Have been specifically asked to present a user's critical view of computing machinery with emphasis on its limitations.
A review of the Bell Laboratories' digital computer developments
The Bell Telephone Laboratories have designed and built seven digital computers. They are all electro-mechanical types using telephone systems relays and teletype transmitting and recording devices as their principal apparatus elements.
The transistor as a digital computer component
Digital computers have been defined as machines that use a language explicitly and one may think of them as carrying on interior dialogues. This concept helps to illustrate one difference between the modern computer and other electronic machinery. The ...
Digital computers: present and future trends
The Program Committee asked me to summarize the present status of digital computers; also to point up the better features of the machines described at this Conference, and to forecast trends to be expected in the future.