Engineering research associates (6 Ergebnisse)

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

No Binding. Zustand: Very Good. [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.

Zustand: Near Fine. Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Very Good. First edition. First edition, first printing. xiii. [1], 451 pp. Bound in publisher's navy cloth, ruled in blind on front board and lettered in gilt on spine. Near Fine with trivial foxing to upper textblock edge, light offsetting from jacket to endpapers, and owner inscription to front pastedown. In a scarce Very Good unclipped dust jacket with sunned and creased spine panel, light foxing, and moderate wear. The first edition of the foundational text of the American computer industry. This well-organized compendium of components, techniques, and concepts was developed by a research team that had its roots in wartime naval cryptanalysis.…

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.…