Welcome to Computing Then
|
||
FORTRAN Comes to Westinghouse-Bettis, 1957
What was the initial experience of the earliest institutional and corporate users of FORTRAN? This engaging anecdote describes the arrival of a box of nearly 2,000 cards from IBM at the Westinghouse-Bettis Laboratory on 20 April, 1957, and Herbert Bright, Ollie Swift, and Lew Ondis' "innocence, ignorance, and exhilarating success" with the compiler that day. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Associates, Inc. 1946–1955
This pioneer account from two former Engineering Research Associates engineers provides an intriguing examination of the early years of the firm, which—along with Eckert and Mauchly's higher profile Electronic Control Company (later Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company)—initiated the US computer industry. Of particular interest, it discusses the many organizational challenges of integration following Remington Rand's acquisition of Eckert-Mauchly and ERA in the early to mid 1950s. Historian Arthur Norberg later did an important in-depth examination (Computers and Commerce, MIT Press, 2005) of the history of ERA, Eckert-Mauchly, and Remington Rand, drawing on this article, numerous oral histories, and other sources. Click here for a PDF of the entire article. |
Podcasts
The First Computer Dating In 1959, two Stanford undergraduate electrical engineering students enrolled in Math 139, Theory and Operation of Computing Machines, and as a final class project, devised the first known attempt at computer dating. 
Jack Kilby (1923–2005) A biographical sketch of Jack Kilby, pioneering inventor of ICs. 
Recollections: The Rise and Fall of WordStar This memoir focuses chiefly on the story of WordStar, the pioneering word processing software for personal computers that was ahead of its time. 
BBN's Earliest Days: Founding a Culture of Engineering Creativity In establishing BBN, the founders deliberately created an environment in which engineering creativity could flourish. The author describes steps taken to assure such an environment and a number of events that moved the company into the fledgling field of computing.
|
|
