24 Oct
1998
24 Oct
'98
8:21 a.m.
Here are a couple of questions inspired by my encounter with the
IBM Automatic Sequence-Controlled Calculator Mark I.
For one thing, if this thing could perform all of the basic
calculations to many decimal places in a short time, why build an
ENIAC, many times bigger, and less reliable, when this machine
could have been scaled if necessary? It had been in development, and
I'm sure the military was working on relay-based machines as well.
So why the choice of digital with vacuum tubes?
Also, the plaque at the Mark I said that it was decimal. I am slightly
familiar with flip-flops and stuff, but what would be a way to make
a decimal computer?
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