19 Oct
2010
19 Oct
'10
3:07 p.m.
On 2010 Oct 19, at 2:10 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
Not to take away from your point, but why do you include SEAC/SWAC in
that list? (both National Bureau of Standards computers)
I stand corrected about SWAC. But SEAC (and its successor DYSEAC)
both went to the Army.
Is there some ref for this in relation to SEAC? From online refs I see
DYSEAC was built by NBS for delivery to the Army, but everything I have
seen for SEAC (1950) indicates it was at NBS for many years, where it
played a role in early image processing experiments (1957). It did some
computing for other gov agencies, but it's prime of life seems to have
been at NBS.
Military computing tends to be 800 pound gorilla in
the room that
historians tend to dismiss.
How do you figure? The early history of digital computing,
especially in the 1940s - 1950s, is dominated by military
installations. Colossus, ENIAC, many UNIVACs, SEAC/SWAC, SAGE, etc.
.... in fact this year's winner of the Computer History Museum
Prize* is "Calculating a Natural World" by Atsushi Akera. The book
is a great read and focuses on Cold War computer research.
* The prize is administered by the Society for the History of
Technology's Special Interest Group for Computers, Information, and
Society, a.k.a. SHOT-SIGCIS. This is the primary organization for
professional computer historians.