PLU TER 1f d DIG I IA CO Mt sia ps Vil '1 N' lit0 I n lq@ 24IS t lith o A 141 iii 1 t of ¶ W TADIX Or' CONEPI'Mr 4 I toAA If% I AI ll 0141014 V 0 O ak KWMPII C IAYI A' I Is h N A lmo 1M 0Iti I It '4 t 1i Vi ' tpw4idM lilekil 0 1%nitlklov l a allis hI' Notional IalIntrAlotS' I t'rho neyllioIt aA U oileSmtv KIy dim r ' olols io h In torwtnod lonarpt III la anto ll w University l ho I % r Wanj 14 The i Kaid CarpI' rml Com Project I I I 10 II to 10 A LtIIwoliI 1Ailr alora% LlA le I Ellot B ohr sl IA Limiated S Manchester UTintorall 6 Wrismann Institute' o Scionsr 1 I -rttv 1 ' 61 7 C OMPONECNTSOT' bNow 1 18I Diglital Plotter Magnsetic Recorder MEETINGS MISCELLANEOUS 19I Ii i U Approved by The Under Secretary of the Navy 16 August 1954 r ' ' N 7- IS DOCU•NT • m• OUALITY AVAILABLE TB BES•T• COPY U PUNISI• •ED TOL DTIC CONTAND NUMBER OF NOT D 7vCH A S•I•CANT REPRODUCED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY CONTAINED THIS DOCUMENT BLANK PAGES THAT HAVE BEEN DELETED COMPUTERS U S A tisijt l i t k Ign'nveM 164 And arlyliti 1 ali 11 ii i ll n ' tltlk Ilili 11-011111114 11141 h' A d11 Itifi -I'llA Wit Al'iffibt lluivt iill lv lon 14r with fil A as Aw 1tviC ait n ngitioim T itnitn i ki' M limiu 4Ilikollnd it'll tIlo 1 iiiing 1iiilli l ig ly Ai A an 111 4111tvInttro poimeld fiall Vito fil'I'lli 1 t g ao A nod I eNII'll h1ypro 1104A I Vnlillht'l Iong I 'li ptki'lN' letie Vn olkli IV Io kil p Itisinlsitn Th irA nit toutii Coflb 'cathwltP gllte u A ndI I U64I-'l ciaiilto ' Il ilt tithha lilt 4 na dlik'11%Ai ltaf silal' Itwdt u a 111 Ill11111rus l 0114%II9M1 UI A nd flit IVA tod 1141ria lito tit 1 111 t wee 01-411111 t th1e10 o nh'IPy w r ý Di of1an hI J 041It1I21illlk Men%rvii ol 1116101111V tit 11w 1 7 0Il 013 3 ich 14vt0 I ol r w k el illc ltilk 411 111lt321 4 l 11111 2312 20 V4l Standby UnItvii 1ablos Total Matchino Wook 23 180 0 10 2 168 1 tee 34 10 too1 t0 0 26 J10 1 5 18$ IGO 20i lo s 43 196 9 1 9 211 a 18 lek- 1-68 Ill ordler ito better evaluate 111h ffect lveneuasb of theme Vuompuoti etil te followintli litanidards Arno eintg otiled for the deter i inat Ion of inuwline perforanceiw A recordai Enginvering Servicitng All iniutchine down i lnie atece assAry for routin au Iemt g giood tir bAd for miachinea aervicing dute to brelakdownti or or- preventive service nwivAurvx e g block tube' claanfiva OHDVAC Wittdga morning routine ENIAC Includeti all test tinme good or baud following breakdown and Nuhse'quenut raspait' of preventiv e 4erviclog Does not Inc lude unselheduled glood testilng t ime as dl 'iscussdunnder' I 5 11 syst ciilliiaie All ain c lne down t lou' needed tit' lihelaut'l liNtIon10 and test lig of netw V0 1OnIpoentat large or slun andu nat 'lhint' 0tvil-tall ua necess4ary for niodl ficat ion of exist ing com ponentsu Includes lilti IWtogratitnnod let it l1lowilsg flthelbove' act ions to prove m achInle 1 4 operaut ing Properly All tinit' spent checking out a problem onl the machine making sure that the problemn is set opt corr'ect ly and that t he code is 'orrectD Ptriittct itont Gomsd omlputi ligtntl including occasional duplication of one case for a chock or rerunning of f1wlittst rtin Also 101 1icatlon requested by the spon sor any r'eruns caused by misInformialion or- hAd dta Maplle by sponsor Error studies using different intervals convergence TinteIc a which ni achine is bvli'ved to be in good operating condition and attended by serv- Ice engineers b ut not in use on problems To verify that the machine is in good operating condition niachine tests of thle leapfrog variety nmust be run at least once each hour Y Ni01 'h#4-rl Nown MiAhhui t lilll'tldi ll 1 lV111110 t tlls' g1' 1 1t osit 11W1i v'f1111l ttille such ast the following 1 gooxd dupliv'ahion V $ ort•1ol Ill pIalt irlttinll of Inplut diti a 3 orr'orr in iAl'railning the prongram dor k 4 lrro' ill t lporatlln Inxtl'lrsn lo ill' Ill nisinlt 0 rl rlttltt tll if Inot rusl'tolnfl 5 unseheduled good tol tIllin t11ll4 rulI duil lugI ll'iltal Ipoul'cld•lol iA d n1toln•tg' attod not 11 oxvlmt 1 Nil Char u 1 pri4ritd when mItt t hln malfunc tion Is Aumpegtod hut MAtt'hins Ulnprloducti livei dui to A 'uilullluter t' ltit Ailauhthe following 1 Nun-duplication 2 Transcl'lrlbng or'o'or 3 Tihletypo or 1IM niAlfuti'tion 4 Machlnenmiafunction resulting in till invomllloto run H Stanu1dby Unattended Time in which the mcathine is in an unknown conditlon and not In uso on problems Includiesi time in which niamhino is known to •w defective and work is not being done to restore it to operating condition Inludes br'Akdowtis which 'ernder it unavailable due to outside condilions power outages etc This figure is to include the total time of items A through H and shall always be 168 hours per week regardless of holidays except for time changes due to Daylight Saving Time Record keeping of machine charges for the current average of some 200 problems requosted per year is mechanized to the extent of transferring information from each machine log to IBM punched cards The information is processed by IBM equipment for periodic Progress reporting as well As for a continuing up-to-date summary of machine charges BUREAU OF StHPS APPLIED MATHEMATICS LABORATORY In Dec tber 19532 a now Applied Mathematicsi Laboratory had been established by the Bureau of Ships Navy Department at the David Taylor Model Basin Carderock Maryland The function of this laboratory is to carry out research leading to the development of high speed computer techniques for the solution of problems in the fields of engineering research and logistics for the Bureau oi Ships and its field activities A UNIVAC System was installed to be used as the primary computing facility During 1953 the new laboratory was organized personnel brought on board and trained a building to house the computer facility completed the computer system installed checked out and routine operation initiated Three shift operation of the installation was instituted at the beginning of 1954 and con tinued throughout the year Despite this schedule of operation the demand for the utilization of high speed computer time has continued at such a level that a considerable backlog has developed The average machine efficiency was maintained at 87 3% A high speed line printer capable of printing 600 lines per minute and a card-to-tape converter were installed A total of 81 problems were solved originating at various BUSHIPS activities Of these 26 were newly programmed and the remainder were recurrent problems High speed computer techniques were developed in connection with a large number of engineering and logistics applications Significant problems solved include 1 calculation of neutron and gamma ray shielding properties 2 calculation of fuel requirements of naval vessels 3 shock response of submarines 4 one dimensional reactor simulation 5 analysis of automatic processing of consolidated stock status repnrt Except as noted in D above - 3 ELECTRODATA 'OItlX ItATION1 DATATRON Accoptan'e testm of three' DatAtron oniputers have been complted These ilnstaliathlon are at Land Air Inc_ Dayton Ohio All State itimurtuice Company Skokiv Ilinois and Arma Corporation Seattle Washington Four computerm are now installed and running at tht Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology The Naval Ordnance Laboratory Corona California The Socony Vacuum Oil Company Laboratories in New Jersey and at Purdue University GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY RCHEL IECTR O N1 R COM PUT ER C ENTER 'I GeorgiA Intitute of t %hikuliu the Rich Electronic Computer Center Atlanta C rgInou hh-i annonced the establishment of This computation laboratory a division of Georgia Tech's Engineering Experiment Station is the first large-scale computer center at an educational institution in the Southeast Its building is scheduled for completion in June 1955 at which time an ERA 1101 computer and a CRC-102D Computer will be installed It is expected that operation of these two electronic calculators will begin in July Plans for the Rich Electronic Computer Center also include research on computer components It is expected that the center will not only provide com utational services but that it will also train mathematicians and engineers in all phases of dirital computation Machine time is available for sponsors Dr E K Ritter formerly Director of the Computation an Ballistics Department U S Naval Proving Ground Dahlgren Virginia became Director of the Rich Electronic Computer Center at Georgia Tech in February 1955 Dr 1 E Perlin Professor of Mathematics who served as Acting Director will continue to be a member nf the applied mathematics staff of the Rich Electronic Computer Center in addition to his duties in the Mathematics Department Mr W A Besaire who recently concluded a tour of active duty as Lieutenant Jg U S Naval Reserve will be in charge of the operation and m'aintenance of the two machines NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS SEAC Operation During the first half of FY 1955 SEAC was operated at the National Bureau of Standards with an overall efficiency of 86% during schuduled computation On November 15 1954 the installation was placed in limited operation for final engineering preparatory to moving the entire equipment from Building 83 to Building 10 Power was turned off on November 22nd and disassembly begun By the end of December the power supplie- air-conditioning equipment and the chassis of the central computer were physically in place in their new location and approximately 90% of the mechanical reassembly had been completed The power distribution system was completed and checked out most of the interconnections between logical elements had been made and the mercury delay line memory was reinstalled and all but two cells were storing satisfactorily On January 21 1955 limited scheduled operation was resumed and on January 31 the entire installation was back in regular operation The relocation of SEAC has been gratifying in several respects First the new area was laid out with adequate space around the machine and an excellent view of the operator's console input-output equipment and central computer is provided through a picture window from the main hall of the building making it extremely convenient for visitors to see the machine without interfering with oneration Secondly in planning for the least possible down-time during the move several improve- ments were made in the new installation -4- I A new regeneration counter for the electrostatic memory was substituted for the former experimental chassis 2 Component parts of the electrostatic memory were rearranged to provide shorter deflection leads and improved high voltage distribution 3 Logical chasses throughout the entire machine were rearranged to provide shorter signal lead distribution 4 The control ciabole was installed so as to provide the operator with more space and easier ac ess to the tape units Inter- connections between the central computer console and auxiliaries are now made through a raceway and all units are protected by an enclosure K IhP Inpit-niltplit dnt 4 pren•rnition rooms are now adjacent to the control area which makes for an improved working arrangement In May 1955 SEAC which was originally constructed as an interim experimental machine will have completed five years of productive operation SEAC Programming The following routines were developed in recent months and were added to the stock of routines in use with SEAC They are available for use by other Government agencies A Matrix Routines 1 Matrix multiplication for matrices of order 250 or less not necessarily symmetric 2 Matrix inversion a up to 28 x 28 floating 45 seconds for 10 x 10 b up to 85 x 85 double precision and floating c up to 100 x 100 scaled 3-1 2 hours for 50 x 50 3 Solution of simultaneous linear equations a up to 28 x 28 floating 30 seconds for 10 x 10 b up to 100 x 100 scaled 3-1 2 hours for 50 x 50 c up to 750 x 750 floating for triangular systems 4 Characteristic roots and vectors a up to 25 x 25 for symmetric matrices 1 hour for 10 x 10 b up to 30 x 30 floating for symmetric matrices roots only 14 minutes for 20 x 20 B Orthonormalizing routines 1 Routine for orthonormalizing a set of N real vectors each of n components and for expanding an arbitrary vector in terms of the original N vectors this expansion being best in the least-square sense N and n are restricted by the inequality N n N 2 _800 2 Routine for orthonormalizing a set of N real or complex vectors each of n components and for expanding n arbitrary vectors in terms of the original N vectors n _ 250 fixed point C Routine for computing g z Pn Z or g z Pn z op P z where op -x - and I g z or I g z 1 2 for z z j 1 k where Pn and Pm are complex polynomials of degree n and m respectively k n m _336 floating 8 sig fig -5 - D Routines for computing higher transcendental functions 1 Complex error function for z - x 4 iy x y - 0to 6 2 Coulomb wave functions F1 q p G1 17 p for L O l l00 ý p - 0 to 50 3 Hypergeometric function F a b c z for complex parameters and argument where 1 and c is not a negative integer in general the code will give 1l-8 significant figures when F a b c z and the largest term in its series expansion is less than 10' Iz ' The Computation Laboratory of the National Bureau of Staindards also maintains a comprehensive central library of notes reports and technical publications concerned with programming and coding for electronic digital computers Special emphasis is placed on material pertaining to automatic coding and techniques for increasing the efficiency in the use of the various highspeed digital complters Tho- are available for recfrence at the Bureau The Diode Amplifier Research on application of semiconducting diodes has led to the development of a new class of amplifiers that utilizes the reverse transient phenomenon of these semiconductor devices Devised by A W Holt of the National Bureau of Standards the diode amplifier promises important application in the future design of high-speed electronic computers For example they have been used in varied flip-flop circuits shift registers and counting circuits delay stages and as wide-band flat-response amplifiers From a material standpoint the device requires a semiconducting crystal which exhibits a large degree of carrier storage Because diodes that are now in regular production display this characteristic commercial applications are practical at the present time In order to operate the diode as an amplifier it must be supplied with power from a r-f source which puts the circuit in the same category as magnetic and dielectric amplifiers The r-f power supplies that have been used with present circuitry have been in the one to 30 megacycle range The information handling rate of diode amplifier circuitry is dependent upon the carrier life time in the diode If the proper diode and circuit are chosen the information rate may be as fast as the r-f source Future improvement in the manufacture of diodes may make the principle useful for amplification at even microwave frequencies New System Design A nww large-scale general-purpose computer system has been designed at NBS for carrying out computations requiring continuous access to large volumes of externally stored information e g large-scale matrix manipulations Devised by A L Leiner W A Notz J L Smith and A Weinberger the system utilizes NBS 1-megacycle packaged circuitry techniques and is approximately 10 to 15 times as fast as SEAC in computing speed It is organized around a high-speed parallel memory system with access time in the range 3 to 12 microseconds This memory is used as a common storage pool which can be kept in constant communication almost simultaneously with all of the other units in the system These other units may include 1 a team of high-speed input-output and external storage units 2 various arithmetic or data-processing units 3 various special-purpose input-output units function generators or checking units as well as the control units necessary for regulating all of these Communication between the units is carried out over a multiplicity of independent trunk lines so that data can be transferred continuously between the external units and any part of the memory without interfering appreciably with the progress of the computing or data-processing units Besides these facilities the special supervisory control facilities that were incorporated into the DYSEAC system can also be provided in this system Although originally designed for the Air Force to handle the large volume of input-output traffic anticipated for certain of their linear programming calculations the system is adaptable to a variety of other applications since it can be assembled either in its maximum form or in smaller variants particularly adapted to specialized uses For example one installation might consist of a rather small memory unit a very large number of input-output storage units and -6- a small arithmetic unit Such an installation would be well suited for carrying large-scale accounting processes Another type of installation might consist of input-output units a vcry large memory and complete arithmetic unit Such art would be effective in handling many types of mathematical problems A still larger installa•ti would contain many input-output units a large internal memory and one or more complete arithmetic units or specialized processing units Such an installation could handle large-scale matrix manipulations Finally a maximum computing and control installation would contain not only the units already mentioned but also various specialized input units which could be controlled remotely via communication lines various specialized output units which could control visual display devices or servomechanisms and possibly even other full-scale computers which could be harnessed to this system and work cooperatively with it on a common task Thus this system is adaptable to a variety of applications ranging from the simple to the highly complex yet a unified design is possible because different levels of complexity are obtained merely by varying the number and specialization of the individual units annexed to its central core NAVAL PROVING GRCOUND CALCULATORS The dismantling and shipping of the Naval Ordnance Research Calculator NORC to the Naval Proving Ground is scheduled to start about 1 March 1955 Since early December 1954 the NORC has been undergoing a testing period at the IBM-Watson Laboratories in New York City part of each day being used for computation and part for engineering tests A number of problems and various coding routines have been successfully completed during this time The Aiken Relay Calculator ARC and the Aiken Dahlgren Electronic Calculator ADEC formerly known as Mk III continue on a twenty-four hour daily schedule five days each week Delivery of new equipment for conversion between ADEC magnetic tape and punched cards is expected in March or April 1955 MONROBOT CORPORATION MONROBOT V was delivered February 18th to Ft Belvoir U S Army Engineering Center for surveying and mapmaking It will be used afield and is equipped with shock absorbers for safe moving from place to place in a truck It is designed for special duty to withstand dust and extreme changes in temperature and humidity Complete in a large metal desk it is equipped with its own cooling system To facilitate passing through narrow doois it may be split into two separate sections Weight is less than 1500 pounds For convenient servicing it is designed with plug-in units Its low power consumption 4 kw makes it ideal for use with the Army's portable power units The built-in keyboard is simple in design permitting probleras to be entered in their algebraic form Punched tape facilities provide for automatic operation when desired Results may be printed on continuous 8 inch wide paper tape or may be punched out in the form of perforated tape Trigonometric calculations may bc carried out to 2C place accuracy MONROBOT VI is virtually the same in electronic design as MONROBOT V but is built in different physical form Instead of being in a metal desk it is in the conventional rackpanel-cabinet form and is prcvided with MAID facilities for automatic internal diagnosis with dual arithmetic processing units Several are now under construction OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY - ORACLE The Oracle Computer has now been in operation at Oak Ridge for more than a year The operating summary for the past seven months is given in the table below During this period approximately 100 problems were solved on the computer These included quadratures systems of simultaneous differential and partial differential equations matrix problems Monte Carlo problems and various other engineering and scientific calculations The Oracle is normally operated two shifts per day five days per week with unscheduled time available during the third shift -7 - GOOD COMPUTING TIME Hours Minutes UNSCHEDULED ENGINEERING REPAIR Hours Minutes July 188 10 29 15 August 332 00 2 0 2 8 September 365 42 16 02 October 361 06 5 08 November 260 t 5 15 00 December 243 35 8 07 January 272 44 23 05 MONTH A contract has been awarded to Soroban Engineering Inc for the fabrication of a compxtcly new input-oUtpuL 6y-tixi to replace the present modified Teletype equipment The new system will utilize both paper and magnetic tape and modified electric typewriters as printing units RAYDAC Machine hours for the average week during November and December 1954 and January 1955 are as follows Scheduled Engineering Unscheduled Engineering 0 9 9 2 Total Engineering 10 1 Machine Check Invalid Computing Idle Setup and Check Production 2 5 1 5 0 1 26 6 14 4 Total Available 42 6 Total 55 2 Number of Unscheduled Down Times Average Down Time Period hours Number of Problem Changes 22 8 0 4 50 5 Raydac has recently been occupied by the following types of problems 1 Editing tf Tridop data and computation of trajectories from edited Tridop data 2 Computation of radiation patterns of a right circular radome 3 Calibration of Telemeter Data 4 Computation of smoothed velocity and acceleration from trajectory information 5 Solution of large systems of ordinary differential equations 6 Performance of computations in connection with analyses of variance 7 Harmonic Analysis 8 Reduction of cine-theodolite data 9 Regresbion Analysis of test data 10 A study of errors in a radar system 11 Solution of matrices inversion and multiplication -8 - REMINGTON RAND Remington Rand's Univac High Speed Printer the latest of the output devices for the Univac system transcribes data from Univac magnetic tape to paper at a speed up to 600 lines of 130 characters each per minute It prints numbers letters and pun-tuation marks It can be set to print 200 400 or 600 lines a minute The High Speed Phinter consists of four units a Tape Reader which is a modified clutchoperated Uniservo and which reads the information from tape in blockettes of 120 digits the Printing Unit which includes the operator's control panel and the printing facihties and two electronic units which contain the Power Supply the gas-tube memory and the control and checking circuits Extremely versatile as well as fast the High Speed Printer will handle any sprocket-feed paper either blank or preprinted from 4 to 27 in overall length and up to card stock in weight Forms with as many as four carbons can be handled and special tissue-weight forms with single-use carbons can be used in packs up to ten The High Speed Printer is being used for payroll reporting statistical reports inventory purposes sales reports schedules price lists and billing etc A special fast-feed feature advances the paper rapidly over areas where no printing is required As a result paychecks for 7 500 employees can be printed in less than an hour The character span of 130 per line is spaced ten to the inch horizontally and six to the inch vertically The paper fast-feeds at a speed of 120 lines a second A plugboard allows flexible control of the format on the printed page during normal multiline or multiple printing The plugboard is also used for zero suspension Self-checking features of the High Speed Printer practically void the possibility of an 'indetected error The detection of an error stops the High Speed Printer and neons indicate where the trouble lies The control panel switches and neons are grouped into logical zones of activity which greatly simplifl Printer operation Similar planning in design of the High Speed Printer facilitates trouble-shooting Information on the input tape to the High Speed Printer is grouped in blockettes ten womd items of 120 characters the tapes can be produced by either the Card-to-Tape Converter the Unityper II or by Univac itself Up to 7 500 blockettes can be put on one High Speed Prin' ei tape THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY Electronic Computer Project A graphing oscilloscope which operates in connectionwith the magnetic drumof the Institute machine has been placed in operation It is capable of presenting a graph having as many as 1024 points per drum revolution i e each word on the drum determines such a point Nine digits of such a word specify the abscissa and nine others the ordinate The graph is displayed whenever the drum is not communicating with the machine proper It is hoped that early in the fall a large drum of about 12 000 word capacity will be in operation in place of the present 2 000 word one The logical design and overall circui• design are now being considered It is hoped that these designs will be sufficiently general t permit future input-output modifications or improvements Experimental work is being carried on with the view to increase speed and capacity of both the arithmetic and Williams memory components Work is in progress on an input routine which will obviate much of the routine clerical work of coding by translating codes consisting of IAS orders from a coder's form using quite flexible symbolic addresses and mnemonic operation-symj#ols to the absolute binary form timed by the '111putsr The In1141 rultl will v'ceipisitM the iin•iry codr Ial IIi ithe Willia111n memory and on punc he'd ca rdn aizld It doi''red tI tabulaltIon of lhit vodtt vich o1 dtr beIing howliw Ixbth mynmh •iIally Am read In and in A mi e 32r promrntatIon ti its 'final form and location THE INTERNATIONAl 'I 1METER CORPORATION MNEMOTRON The International Telemeter Corporation of Los Angevhe' californla ham completed a large high-speed magnetic-core memory called the MNEMOTHON 11anintg m'aet'ory device This memory has been delivered to the Hand Corporation in Santia Monica Cali ornia and replaced the 256-word selectron memory in the Rand JOHNNIAC computer The MNEMOTRON is a coin'tident-current core memory with a capacity of 4096 40 bit words The 40 bits in each word are reaid and written in parallel There is random access to any word with access time of 6 microseconds A complete memory cycle including a r ud and write operation takes 15 microseconds The 163 840 operating cores of the memory are tssembled in 40 matrices of 128 by 32 cores These matrices Are driven in their long dimension by 32 vacuum tube switch drivers and in their short dimension by 40 128-way ferrite-core switches The memory cir'cults contain 1207 electron tubes PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY A digital comouter called PENNSTAC is under construction at this institution The work has been under direction of J N Warfield and W House is the Chief Logical Designer This machine will be a serial coded-decimal computer operating with a 2421 code The memory will be a magnetic drum type with storage capacity of 2500 ten decimal digit words Maximum access time will be 4 8 milliseconds The machine will contain about 1500 vacuum tubes and about 5000 germanium diodes The machine is being built to serve the University in an educational capacity A moderately extensive graduate program will have the machine as its nucleus It is hoped the machine will be completed by the end of 1955 RAND IOHNNIAC COMPUTER A 4096-word magnetic core memory was received from International Telemeter Corporation in February 1955 The installation time was one week Debugging is going well enough to expect that full scale acceptance tests will be under way by 1 March 1955 The JONNIAC operating and maintenance console is nearly complete and is to be installed by 1 April 1955 The 12 000-word drum system is complete and now under test belore being coupled to the JOHNNIAC computer UNDERWOOD CORPORATION ELECOM 50 Underwood Corporation's new electronic accounting machine the ELECOM 50 was demonstrated for the first time in a payroll application at the American Management Association sessions held at the Hotel Statler New York February 28th and March 1st and 2nd It will be in the low price class A magnetic drum internal memory gives the machine a capacity corresponding to 50 registers on electromechanical bookkeeping and accounting machines The machine's program is controlled by a previously prepared control tape The control tape is metallic and the program is sensed electrostatically The capacity of the first ELECOM 50 will be 16 programs each 100 different steps long and the Computer will accept program instructions at the rate of 15 per second There are twi- input-output devices available A Standard Sunstrand C carriage to handle la rge forms with ten-key keyboard and an auxiliary carriage for continuous rolls tapes or printed forms such as checks etc - 10- WANt IAIO tAI OItlP Wang LA oratories of Cambridg MAxoarhuxetit announces a new and unique dig italanihloi differential •l•imiuier rAlled Dl0IALO Comnpute'r which requlron no progranimintg This conmputiter will olve Imini0Ar and i1'on- IIn ar differentill equationsi sinmultaneoum differential equa•lions alitebra m equationms partial differentma•l equathions and inte gral equations The machine re •olution ix five decimal digits All numbers art' handled Ax true numbers with sign The my stem mntxnitri of several types of unitized compulattional units which are operated roum a central control All the computational units are patched as dictated by the problem similar to the D C analog techniques The problem determines the number and type of computational unit ' required Parallel modes of operation make this computer a powerful tool for most sclentifi mind engineering researches Outputs are available as electric typewriter tabulations multiple channel recordinge plotting botrds or punched cards In addition to these all variables are indicated by neon lights and available at all times WHIRLWIND NIT December 1954 January and February 1955 Applications During the past 3 months the Scientific and Engineering Computation Group in conjunction with various departments at MIT processed 76 problems for solution on Whirlwind I These problems are described in the Project Whirlwind Summary Reports submitted to the Office of Naval Research Of these problems 32 are for academic credit I for a bachelor's degree 6 for master's degrees and 25 for doctor's degrees the results of 12 are expected to be included in reports submitted for publication in technical journals Routines available in the cemprehensive system have been extended to include curve plotting axes display axes calibration and alphanumerical display The desired routine is assembled in response to an appropriate pseudo-code e g SQC a2 will call in a routine that will plot on the oscilloscope a point-Scope Output Curve-whose x-coordinate is stored in register a2 and whose y-coordinate appears in the iccumulator Systems Engineering In September 1954 the procedures for gathering and evaluating data on the operation of the Whirlwind I computer system were revised to permit more comprehensive analyses of system reliability In general the new procedures provide more complete data on all computer stoppages and a biweekly review and summary of these stoppages In the summary each failure is classified to show its cause or principal symptom as well as to show whether it should be charged against the system or directly attributed to installation of new equipment or to modification in the 20-week period since these records were initiated the following data have been obtained Total computer operating time Total number of failure incidents Average uninterrupted operating time between incidents Average time to locate and repair each failure 2675 hours 244 10 6 hours 22 8 minutes These data reflect the total experience on the entire system which contains approximately 6500 tubes 8000 cathodes in the central computer and about 4200 tubes 5000 cathodes in its terminal equipment They cover operations on a 24-hour-per-day basis approximately 6 days per week Since only a fraction of the terminal-equipment facilities are required during portions of the computer time failures in the sections not in use may or may not actually interrupt - 11 - system operation Failurom whieh do not vat•uonttrruptionN however munt be considered in order to obtain an aceurato picture of system performance In obtaining the averames given abnve such a failure was considered to have caused a time loss equal to the average actual lost time for that claso of failure The amount of preventivw' maintenance required hm dvtcreased an new installation programs were complited For tho past few months time upent on preventive maintenance has averaged about 1 2b hours per day Academic MIT Course 6 535 Introduction to Digital Computer Coding and Logic a discussion of selected topics in programming logical design and applications of large-scale digital computers is being offered nuring the spring of 1955 The course has an enrollment of 65 sezttors and graduate students from the engineering and inaustrial-management curricula Project Whirlwind staff members have participated in seminars on machine methods of computation numerical analysis and operations research COMPUTERS Overseoas ELLIOTT 402 ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER The ELLIOTT 402 is manufactured by Elliott Brothers London Limited England and iO the production voraion of the 401 described in the July 1953 editior of the Digital Computer Newsletter A laboratory model has been running since the beginning of the year and the first production model is to be delivered to the Inotitut Blalse-Pascal Paris in March 1955 Several more are on the production line and will follow at two-three month intervals The computer rornaists of an assembly of seven individually ventilated cabinets containing 223 stiadarilzed plug-in units incorporating 615 tubes a magnetic memory stabilized power supplies and a built-in control desk Input medtum Is 0-hole punched paper tape read photo-eAectrlcally or manual input of 1 word frorm the built-in Number Generator An external electric typewriter or tape-perforator and page-printer serve as output SPEEDS Digit Rate Digit Time Word Length Word Time Addition subtraction etc Multiplication and diviz'on independent jf sign 333 000 per second 3 microseconds 34 digits 2 1-32 102 microsezoads 204 microseconds 3 3 millisecondo MEMORY DATAThe immediate access memory has 15 sHIgle-word magnetostrlctlve nickel delay-line registers while the main memory is a rotating magnetic drum with 23 tracks each containing rv'sd of rotation 4 600 r p m Mean access tihe 128 words Total capacity 2 944 words to 8 electronically selected tracks 6 5 mikliseconds ORDER CODE- Two-address for optimum programming - 12 - B-LINE FACILITYSeven of the ninkel line rogiMern in %ho immediate accems memory are available for modifying inotructions MONITORING rACILrrIKs Two built-in cathode-ray tube displayt tach showing a nolected word TESTINGFacilities for testing plug-ir unit mze built Into the Computer A trolley-mounted general- purpose oucilloscope in provided MARGINAL TESTINGComponent failure can be anticipated by ruaning through check program while H T supplies frequency and timing are varied under program control TAPE PREPARATIONA keybuard perforator for punchiing input tape is supplied POWER REQUIREMENTS8 kVA 415V 50 c s 3 phase with neutral and earth As an ex uliple of speed of operation the ELLIOTT 402 will invert a 20 x 20 matrix in 10 minutes including read-in az-A print time S% A SOCIETE' D'ZLECTRONIQUE ET D'AUTOMATISME FRANCE C U B it CALC'ILATIU'CE UNIVERSELLE BINAIRE DE L' ARMEMENT Thm3 high speeo large scale general purpose computer is now installed at the French 3aboratoire Central de I'Armement and is undergoing system tests C A 3 2022 CALCULATEUR ARITHMETIQUE BINAIRE 2022 This high speed large scale general purpose computer operates in the progressive sequence mode with serially handled pulse trains encoded in the binary system Its distinctive characteristics are Basic clock frequency 100 kc sec Word Length Number-word or Instruction-Word 22 significant digits one gap digit Minor cycle 0 23 Milliseconds Major Cycle one turn of the magnetic drum 29 44 milliseconds Instruction Form 1 address - Automatic modification of address ordered from an interpretative part of an instruction - Conditional instructions for sequence breaks - 26 operational Letters Presentation of Number-Words Positive Number Plain Negative Number Two' - complement Fixed binary point at the left end of a word - 13- Input Number-Words and Instructlon-Words Punched tape readers magnetic tape units and other kinds of input units may b# adapted Arithmetic Unit Fixed point operation floating point operatiot subroutines facilitated by the provision of a normalisation inatruction Arithmetic apeedl Addition and Subtraction 0 23 milliseconds Multiplication division and square roots 5 3 milliseconds Left or right denominational shifting 1 minor cycle through one pulse period shifts Storage Rapid access ferrite core matrices 2 groupm of 64 words one group for the number-words the other one for the instruction-words access time lower than the pulse period Medium access Magnet c Drum 1 Drum bearing 64 tracks each one of 128 words 8 192 words 15 millisec average access time Output Punched tape recorder rate 15 characters per second or Page Teleprinter rate- 7 characters per sec - Other output recorders adaptable Components Pluggable printed circuitry units 8 000 crystal diodes G00 vacuum tubes 3500 ferrite cores Power consumption 8 Kilowatts FERRANTI LIMITED Ferranti Ltd have recently announced the Ferranti Pegasus Computer a medium-priced high-speed general-purpose computer This machine has been developed by the Ferranti London Computer Laboratory in collaboration with the National Research Development Corporation Pegasus exploits the power of the packaged circuit technique by allowing the logical design to meet the expressed needs of the user Thus very many features have been introduced to simplify the programming and to ensure convenience in operation The whole mechanical design of the machine is on a standard unit part basis making for economical production and ready modification to special requirements BASIC DESIGNCalculations are carried out in a high speed computing memory with immediate access to every register The main memory is a magnetic drum Particular attention has been given to providing facilities which bring the two memories very closely together in use this being largely achieved by the special arrangements for the modification of the addresses of orders - 14 - For many calculations the machine may be considered to be nearly equivalent to one with a high-speed single-level computing store of over 4 000 word capacity 8TORAQEa The computing memory comprises single-word registers each consisting of a maMgntostrictive nickel delay-line The memory is arranged as follows 1 Four or six blocks each of eight registers available for both orders and information and possessing addition and subtraction properties 2 Seven registers available as separate accumulators each with the full range of usual properties and facilities for order modification 3 Up to 56 special registers associated with special constants input output etc These are not necessarily magnetostrictlve delay-lines b Main Memory This is a magnetic drum with a capacity of 4608 words Information may be transferred to or from the Computing memory as single words or in blocks of eight words Maximum access time is 16 7 milliseconds WORD LENGTH- 39 binary digits all arithmetical operations are signed Two 19-digit orders and a stop-go digit held in one word SPEEDSDigit rate 333 kc s Arithmetical operations except multiplication and division normally take 315 microseconds multiplication takes 2 5 milliseconds and division 5 milliseconds ORDER CODEA multiple-accumulator code is used Versatile order-modification jump and counting facilities are a feature of the code Special facilities are available to aid double-length and floating-point arithmetic INPUTPunched paper tape using the Ferranti High-Speed Tape Reader at 200 characters per second Checking facilities are provided for numerical information OUTPUTPunched paper tape Creed punch at 25 characters per second This tape is fed to a conventional teleprinter external to the machine Checking facilities are provided for numerical information on output EXTRA FACILITIESPunched card input and output wil be available with or without automatic radix conversion Magnetic tape as an external mernovy Ill also be available With these two extras the machine will be suitable for a wide va iey of commercial work The first Pegasus Computer is now bsirng assembled at the Ferranti London Computer and Information Handling Laboratory and will be demonstrated there LEO COMPUTERS LTD LEO the automatic computing system built by 3 Lyons Co Ltd of Cadby Hall London England has now been in practical operation in their offices since January 1954 Since then it - 15 - has produced the payroll with all associated records for a progressively greater number of employees starting with 1 700 and now reaching 10 000 The payroll has been completed on each occasion on the scheduled day Other clerical Jobs are being taken over as the necessary reorganization is brought about One job saving about £ 200 a week has been done to schedule each afternoon since October 1954 and provides valuable statistics to the Management of the Lyons Teashops which previously could not have been produced economically LEO has since the end of 1951 been doing a variety of mathematical and statistical Jobs and is still used for this purpose during the intervals between clerical jobs MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENTAL COMPUTER MEG ACYCLE A new electronic digital computer has been under active development for two years and is now in operation at Manchester University Computing Laboratory The new design retains the serial-binary mode of number transfer but the basic pulse repetition frequency has been increased to 1 Mc sec The working memory provides rapid access facilities to 1 024 10 digit numbers or to 512 20 digit instructions or to 256 40 digit numbers or to combinations within the defined lVmits of all these varying length numbers Cathode-ray tube storage has been employed though the design is intentionally flexible enough to permit the use of a magnetic core memory as an alternative The cathode-ray tube memory has ten tubes each holding 1 024 digits the tubes being operated in parallel at 100 Kcs sec A magnetic drum is included within the design to provide subsidiary storage and there are the usual paper tape input-output facilities Two classes of operation are possible within the machine ten digit logical arithmetic and f3rty digit floating point arithmetic It is possible to perform the logical operatione or and and and also to add and subtract in any one of eight ten digit registers which are also used as B registers The forty digit numbers are expressed in the binary form a2b where a is a thirty digit number and b is a ten digit exponent Addition subtraction and multiplication are carried out with completely automatic shift standardize and round-off facilities provided Provision is also made to permit nonfloating arithmetic to be carried out The control of the machine is such that 10 digit arithmetic operations are conducted in 60 secs 40 digit floating addition and subtraction in 180 secs and floating point multiplication in 360 secs From the constructional aspect the design of a new type of electro-magnetic delay line and its widespread use within the machine have produced a pronounced change from conventional practice A number of new circuit techniques have resulted in an improvement in the overall size of the machine which comprises approximately 1650 tubes and 1620 crystal diodes A SMALL EXPERIMENTAL TRANSISTOR DIGITAL COMPUTER A small experimental digital computer using a magnetic drum and employing point contact transistors has been constructed at Manchester University The computer which operates in the serial mode was built with the primary aim of designing transistor circuits and to investigate the performance of transistors in a digital computer All the storage facilities are provided by the magnetic drum The clock waveform is obtained from a track on which 3072 pulses are recorded The drum has an induction motor drive and no provisions are made to control the speed The clock frequency at normal drum speed is about 125 Kilocycles sec and the circuits of the computer have been designed to operate at speeds within the expected range of variation Each of the 64 words of 48 digits is identified by an address track The Accumulator and Instruction Registers are formed by regenerative tracks in which reading and writing heads are placed on the same track but displaced by a distance equivalent to one word period - 16 - All the transistors of the computer operate in cArcuits with two stable states Pointcontact Germanium diodes are used in gates handling information pulses and transistors are used as pulse amplifiers with these gates The transistor is turned on by the information pulse and reset at the end of the digit period by the clock waveform Transistors used for timing waveform generation are turned on and off by pulses obtained from transistor pulse amplifiers The staticisors are also controlled by transistor pulse amplifiers Transistors are used in all the circuits of the computer with the exception of the clock unit which provides a square wave of 125 Kc s and the reading and writing amplifiers for the magnetic drum store in which thermionic valves are employed The power consumed by the 100 point contact transistors and 600 diodes used in the computer is 75 watts The experimental machine with simple facilities and limited storage was successfully operated in November 1953 and simple programs have been performed The speed of operation of the machine is limited by the access time to the magnetic drum memory A two address code is used in which the address of the operand and the address of the next instruction are given to permit the use of optimum programming The transistors have proved to be reasonably reliable Certain transistors after long periods of service however require an increase in base current to ensure correct turn off and to maintain the stability of the off state WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE - ELECTRONIC COMPUTER The geographical frontier of electronic computing will be extended with the completion of a modern high speed electronic computer at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth Israel Construction of the newest member of the family of IAS machines was begun in June 1954 The Central computer is scheduled to begin tests during March 1955 using a drum memory constructed at Rehovoth A core memory system cf 4096 words produced by International Telemeter Corporation will be installed later in the year With the exception of the high speed memory corresponding changes in the control and the replacement of Princeton's Kirchoff adder by a logical adder the Israeli machine follows the design of the computer at Princeton The next report on the Weizmann Institute computer will fill in the details of its characteristics including measured operating times COMPONENTS AUTOMATIC OSCILLOGRAPH TAPE READER N6 thr0• Aircraft Co Inc Northrop has completed the design and construction of a reading device that automatically converts six channels of data on an oscillograph tape to decimal digital values and punches them into cards at the rate of approximately 600 readings per minute This device was'built under contract for Redstone Arsenal Huntsville Alabama for special use in the reduction of telemetered data The reader together with a computer and a high speed digital plotter attached to the output of the computer comprise a complete data reduction system The reader is engineered so that it can potentially become the input device to a wide variety of computers The plotter is designed with romplete adapter units so that it may also be attached to a wide variety of computers NEW DIGITAL PLOTTER The production version of the Northrop-Tally Register Digital Plotter is in operation at Northrop This plotter is capable of plotting multiple curves at speeds approximating 8 pts sec - 17 - 1 with the symbol selection being controlled from the plotter input device The point spacing on the four symbol plotter is 025-inch and the paper width is 10 inches consequently up to 400 points may be plotted along the ordinate Plotting along the abcissa Is accomplished by moving the paper past the plotting head This permits long-time history plots and multiple plots to be made without human intervention Blank paper may be fed into the plotter and if desired the grid may be automatically printed MAGNETIC RECORDER A Magnetic transfer recording technique has been developed by Librascope Inc Glendale California for transferring magnetizable coded data from documents to magnetic tape Recording heads are not used in this process The method is applicable for data systems in which the source document has prequalified coded information recorded on it 4 4 MEETINGS The 1965 annual general meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery - the only one to be held during the year - will take place at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering University of Pennsylvania September 14-16 inclusive As in the past this meeting is intended to serve both as a place for the reporting of new ideas and developments in the applications of computing machinery and as a place for renewing old friendships and m'aking new ones MISCELLANEOUS The Office of Naval Research welcomes contributions to the Digital Computer NEWSLETTER Material should be received by the editor not later than 1 March 1 June 1 September and 1 December to be included in the current issue Short technical articles on new machines on new developments in digital techniques and components on new types of problems solved and generally news items which may be of potential interest to government users are desired Communications should be addressed to A 3 Neumann Editor Digital Computer Newsletter Code 427 Office of Naval Research Navy Department Washington 25 D C - 18- A61438