What is the first computer? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Jun 1998

Do you have any diagrams of the mechanical fire control computers?
...

The line is always grey...

  Didn't that have something to do with RADAR?
Or was it cryptography? 
No, not radar.

Radar, incidently, was just about the first use of digital electonics.
Although there was no computation at the digital level*, vacuum tube
flip-flops and counters were used in the timing circuits, as well in  IFF
...
 codes (The NRL even tried out a pre-1940 IFF box that
used a real  binary
...
 word for the codes, with the hope that encryption would
follow. It  turned
...
 out to just be a lab rat, however, and most of the war
years saw the
horrible British MkIII system in use.).

*The mechanical fire control computers, on the other hand, are truely
awesome devices. They would accept a bunch of real time input data  (some
...
 from the radars, some from the ships' gyros, some
from the gun pointers
(sailors), and even internal data like how many times the gun was
fired (wear on the barrels)) - and output a bunch of data to set up the
shot. It worked well - incredibly well - 20 mile hits on the first shot
were not uncommon. It took YEARS before an electronic computer could  rival
...
 them.

Tons of metal, but built like a Swiss watch.

William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net

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