engineering research associates (9 Ergebnisse)

Hardcover. Zustand: Fine. Hardcover in black cloth with spine lettered in gilt. Sixth printing of the first edition, with "VI" on coyright page. A fine, bright, tight copy. No jacket. 451 pp. with index. Illustrated with diagrams. A cornerstone title in the early histroy of modern computing. From the preface: "This volume is primarily a discussion of the mechanical devices and electrical circuits which can be incorporated into computing machines.we have included descriptions of a few computers, to provide examples of the integration of thechniques and components into complete systems.

Hardcover. Zustand: very good. First edition. This is the definitive modern sourcebook on the technologies from which the computer industry sprang. Widely read, it gave impetus to technical developments both in the United States and abroad. It presents a clear, organized picture of computing concepts, techniques, machinery, and components in use as of 1950, with emphasis on electronic high-speed computing. The material is elaborately referenced and contains a multitude of diagrams and tables. One particularly significant table lists all the computers of the era-including the famous EDVAC, UNIVAC, BINAC, and Mark III-with their specifications. This first compendium of United States computer technology was created by a research team that grew out of the U.S. Navy's wartime cryptologic establishment. Owner name with 1957 date on title page, shallow crease to first few pages, slight rubbing to the edges. First edition. 6¼" - 9½". book.

Hardcover. Zustand: Good. minor wear and creasing pages yellowed.

[ENGINEERING RESEARCH ASSOCIATES] Photograph and engineering documents for an experimental Magnetic Drum Memory system Engineering Research Associates, St Paul MN, circa 1948 Gelatin silver print, on glossy paper stock, 217 x 278mm [together with:] 8 sheets of engineering drawings, reproduced from manuscript originals, 216 x 279mm Very good condition: photograph creased around the edges but the image in excellent condition; drawings near fine: age toned and brittle, with rust marks and creases from a paper'clip An outstanding survival: a group of original mimeographed engineering drawings, and a presentation photograph of the assembled magnetic drum memory system, dating from the very early years of the development of this crucial component of electronic digital computing. Magnetic drum memory was one of the first practical forms of electronic computer memory, using a rotating drum coated with a magnetic material to store data and instructions. The original idea dates back to the 1930s, but it was brought into use in electronic digital computing by Engineering Research Associates (ERA) in the period 1946-1950. ERA had its origins in wwii us Navy during code-breaking. After the War a group of engineers and scientists in the group Communications Supplementary Activity - Washington (CSAW) sought investors for the development of specialist code-breaking machinery, ending up in St Paul, Minnesota, in a disused glider factory. Their specialism was magnetic drum storage, and in 1947 the Navy commissioned a stored-program electronic digital computer, eventually made public as the ERA 1101. Through 1947-48 ERA issued a number of technical papers on the development of magnetic drum storage; the system was made more widely known with the publication of their classic handbook on digital computers, High-Speed Computing Devices (1950). From the limited information in the caption of the photograph here, we can date the image and engineering drawings to the period between the prototype work of 1947 and the finished commercially available drums of 1950. Drum memory influenced early computer architecture, including instruction sequencing and memory management. A particularly important case is IBM, where initial contact with era led to the development of the ibm 650, the company's first mass-produced electronic digital computer. References: Erwin Tomash and Arnold A. Cohen, 'The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Associates, Inc. 1946-1955', Annals of the History of Computing (1979).

Original Cloth. Zustand: Very Good. No Jacket. First Edition.

First edition; 8vo; diagrams throughout, contents fresh; original blue cloth, titles to spine in gilt, cloth a little rubbed with some tiny marks, an excellent copy; 451pp. First edition of 'the first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer' (Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 584). An attractive copy. High-Speed Computing Devices was prepared under the supervision of Charles Brown Tompkins, vice president for research at Engineering Research Associates. Founded in 1946 by ex-Navy personnel, ERA manufactured both commercial computers and secret military equipment, and this book had its origins in a report to the Office of Naval Research. The text 'provided a "cookbook" describing the available ingredients and how they worked for both digital and analog computers. Because it explained the principles involved and gave examples, it was extremely useful'. Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 584.

Engineering Research Associates. Report for the microfilm Rapid Selector. v, 30ff., including 10 full-page photographic illustrations, printed from negatives on Kodak Velox paper. St. Paul, MN: Engineering Research Associates, 20 June 1949. 280 x 215 mm. Original printed wrappers with metal fastener, small stain on front wrapper, slight wear; boxed. Very good. First Edition, and Rare on the Market; this is the only copy we have ever seen for sale in our over 50 years in the trade. In 1947, two years after Vannevar Bush published his idea for the "Memex" information retrieval system, Ralph R. Shaw, director of libraries for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, began developing a pilot model of the "Rapid Selector" machine for the electronic searching of information recorded on microfilm, working with a team of computer designers at Engineering Research Associates. This pilot model, completed in January 1949, was an attempt to realize the goals outlined in Bush's "As we may think" (1945), which introduced some of the foundational information retrieval concepts underlying the Internet and World Wide Web. We are offering here the earliest known printed description of the finished Rapid Selector-the ERA's June 1949 report on the completed machine-which contains detailed illustrated accounts of its design and operation. The ERA's pilot model was the only Rapid Selector ever constructed. The Rapid Selector project's objective "was to develop, within two years, a prototype machine capable of selecting microfilmed business records from microfilm rapidly: A microfilm rapid selector. Bush's selector was indeed rapid because it took advantage of two new developments: Improved photoelectric cell technology; and the stroboscopic lamp pioneered by his colleague Harold E. Edgerton. By creating a bright flash of light lasting only one-millionth of a second, the stroboscopic lamp made it possible to copy a selected microfilm image 'on the fly,'without stopping the film (and the search) to make a copy" (M. K. Buckland, "Emanuel Goldberg, Electronic Document Retrieval, and Vannevar Bush's Memex." Emanuel Goldberg, 1881-1970: Pioneer of Information Science, May 1992 [web]. According to the present report, the Rapid Selector "scans the film at the rate of more than 10,000 frames per minute which may correspond to as many as 60,000 subjects per minute. It selects all abstracts which are associated with an interest category specified by the operator, and recopies the selected items on a separate roll of 35mm film by the use of high-speed photoflash techniques." (p. ii) After its completion the Rapid Selector was shipped to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington DC, where it remained in operation as late as 1958-a Congressional report on the "Science and Technology Act of 1958," published in June of that year, includes a detailed note on the Rapid Selector (p. 430) which states that "the machine is now being remodeled in cooperation with the National Bureau of Standards to simplify and improve it on the basis of operating experience." Father Roberto Busa (1913-2011), a pioneer in the use of computers for linguistic and literary analysis, observed the Rapid Selector in action in November 1949, noting that "its principal feature is the whirlwind speed with which it explores the reels of microfilm-10,000 photograms per minute-and instantaneously rephotographs on another microfilm strip all and only those photograms which bear a determined item" (Busa, Varia specimina concordantiarum [1951], p. 22). Another account of the Rapid Selector, published in Ridenour, Shaw and Hill's Bibliography in an Age of Science (1951), mentioned that the machine stored 72,000 frames of information on a 2000-foot reel of film and could search through data at the rate of 78,000 codes per minute. Not in Origins of Cyberspace. .

First edition, first printing, of the first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer. An important contribution to computing literature in its own right, it also provided some of the most complete bibliographies available on the subject at the time. Charles Brown Tompkins, a pioneering academic in the fields of numerical analysis and computing, wrote the majority of the text, much of which summarises the work of the Engineering Research Associates computer company, of which he was a founder in 1946. Origins of Cyberspace 584; Tomash & Williams E14. Octavo. With diagrams throughout. Original navy cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, front cover ruled in blind. With dust jacket. Minimal shelfwear, cloth bright, contents clean. A near-fine copy in the very good jacket, lightly soiled, chipped at extremities, spine panel faded with two slight indentations and a faint patch of dampstain visible on verso, bookseller's stamp on front flap.

New York, McGraw-Hill, 1950. 8vo. In the original full cloth with the original dust-jacket. Dust-jacket with light miscolouring to spine and and a tear to capitals. Small tear to upper part of the back to dust-jacket. A very fine and clean copy. XIII, (1), 451 pp. First edition in the rare original dust-jacket of the first textbook on digital computers. It constitutes "the first genuine textbook on computing techniques and computer hardware, was a pioneering book that influenced both American and foreign computer developments." (Tomash-Erwin E14). "The first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer" (OOC)"High-Speed Computing Devices was written to satisfy a perceived need, following the end of World War II, for a compendium of technologies applicable to the emerging field of the electronic digital computer. Because published technical information was scarce in the US, there can be little question that the book was an important contribution to the computer literature of the 1950s. For today's student of computer history, whether a professional historian or a history buff, the book, with its state-of-the-art picture of the period 1947 through 1949, establishes a well-documented baseline for tracking and evaluating subsequent technological progress" (A.A. Cohen, "Introduction", Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series Edition of the ERA Report, 1983)."It provides the best picture of the state of the industry in its infancy. Ostensibly written as a report to the Office of Naval Research, the work was really undertaken on behalf of the Naval cryptographic establishment. Engineering Research Associates, ERA, was a group formed primarily from demobilized World War II naval cryptographers. It presents a discussion of the mechanical and electrical (both analog and digital) devices that could be usefully incorporated into computing machines. Although it does not survey the computer projects then underway, it does occasionally discuss individual machines in the context of integrating devices into complete systems. Engineering Research Associates (ERA) later became a division of Remington Rand and then of Sperry Rand." (Tomash-Erwin E14)Tomash-Erwin E14.Origins of Cyberspace 584.