Top

Published in:

2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

4. Sharing Information (or Not) for Computer Development

Author : Bernadette Longo

Published in: Words and Power

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

This chapter describes how computer developers shared information about technology innovations in the early 1940s and through World War II. During this period, much information about computer development was isolated in university laboratories where people worked under national security restrictions. In the absence of formal communication channels for sharing information, computer developers relied on personal relationships and face-to-face meetings to learn about new designs and approaches to automatic machine calculation. In this period, information was largely shared among people who had established contacts with leaders in the field of computer development, yet they often found that they had difficulty sharing information because of differences in terminology they developed in isolated laboratories.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

previous chapter Who Will Control Atomic Power?

next chapter Defining Relationships Among Computers, People, and Information

Atanasoff and Iowa State University did not complete their patent application for the ABC computer. Mauchly’s visit became the basis for a patent dispute when Mauchly did apply for a patent for the ENIAC computer design [19].

In 1971, John Atanasoff was called to testify about his design of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer and his 1941 meeting with John Mauchly in the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand patent dispute. US District Court Judge Eric Larson found “the testimony of Atanasoff with respect to the knowledge and information derived by Mauchly to be credible” [20], thus affirming that Atanasoff originated the design for an electronic computer that was subsequently used in the design of the ENIAC at the Moore School.

Universities represented were Harvard, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, University of Michigan, University of Vermont, Princeton University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Private businesses represented were Bell Laboratories, General Electric, National Cash Register Corporation (NCR), International Business Machines (IBM), Eastman Kodak, Foxboro Instrument Company, and United Aircraft Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut. Governments and military organizations represented were Aberdeen Army Proving Ground, Office of Research and Inventions, Carnegie Institution of Science, National Research Council Committee in the USA and England, Ballistic Research Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Bureau of Ships, Hydrographic Office of the US Navy, and the Bureau of Ordnance.

Although von Neumann’s name was listed as the sole author of the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC that was distributed outside the Moore School laboratory, the report represented work done by John Mauchly, Presper Eckert, and other members of the team working on the EDVAC in that laboratory.

This new association was originally named the Eastern Association for Computing Machinery, but the work “Eastern” was dropped by December 1947 as membership rapidly grew in numbers and geography.

Aiken, Howard H. 1948/1985. Representing the computation laboratory. In Proceedings of a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery, 7. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Anonymous. 1940. The twenty-third summer meeting of the mathematical association. The American Mathematical Monthly 47 (9): 589–594. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2304107. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

———. 1973, March 16. Former professor Howard Aiken dies; Invented large-scale computer. The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1973/3/16/former-professor-howard-aiken-dies-invented/. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

Archibald, R. C. 1946, April. Conference on advanced computation techniques. Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation 2 (14): 65–68.

Aspray, William. 1948/1985. Introduction. In Proceedings of a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery, ix–xx. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Bashe, Charles, et al. 1985. IBM’s early computers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Berkeley, Edmund. 1947, June 25. Notice on organization of an “Eastern Association for Computing Machinery.” Edmund C. Berkeley Papers (CBI 50), Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Brainerd, John G. July 1976. Genesis of the ENIAC. Technology and Culture 17 (3): 482–488.CrossRef

Caldwell, Samuel H. 1948/1985. Publication, classification, and patents. In Proceedings of a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery, 277–283. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

10.

Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and William Aspray. 1996. Computer: A history of the information machine. New York: Basic Books.

11.

Carpenter, Brian E., and Robert W. Doran. 2014, April–June. John Womersley: Applied mathematician and pioneer of modern computing. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 36: 60–70. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2014.25. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

12.

Clippinger, Richard. 1950. Mathematical requirements for the personnel of a computing laboratory. American Mathematical Society 57: 439. Qtd. in Tropp, Henry. February 1974: 70.

13.

Goldstine, Herman H. 1972. The computer from Pascal to von Neumann. Princeton: Princeton University Press.MATH

14.

Grier, David A. 2005. When computers were human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

15.

———. 2006, January . George Stibitz’s values and R. C. Archibald’s slide rule. Computer 39: 11–13. https://doi.org/10.1109/MC.2006.19. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

16.

———. 2009. Failed societies of computing: Committee Z and the professionalization of programming. In IEEE conference on the history of technical societies, 1–6. Philadelphia, PA. https://doi.org/10.1109/HTS.2009.5337870. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

17.

Irvine, M. M. 2001, July–September. Early digital computers at bell telephone laboratories. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 23 (3): 22–42.

18.

Joy, C. Turner. 1948/1985. Representing the Bureau of Ordnance. In Proceedings of a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery, 4–6. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

19.

JVA Initiative Committee. 2011. John Mauchly visits Ames. Iowa State University Department of Computer Science. http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/mauchlyinames.php. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

20.

———. 2011. Patent/court case: Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand. http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/courtcase.php. Iowa State University Department of Computer Science. Accessed 1 Nov 2020.

21.

Lee, J.A.N. 1995. Derek Henry Lehmer. In Computer pioneers. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press. https://history.computer.org/pioneers/lehmer.html. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

22.

———. 1995. George Robert Stibitz. In Computer pioneers. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society Press. https://history.computer.org/pioneers/stibitz.html. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.MATH

23.

———. 1995. Leslie John Comrie. In Computer pioneers. Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society Press. https://history.computer.org/pioneers/comrie.html. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.MATH

24.

Longo, Bernadette. 2015. Edmund Berkeley and the social responsibility of computer professionals. San Rafael: Morgan & Claypool Press – ACM.CrossRef

25.

Morse, Philip M. 1956, September 16. Machine methods of computation and numerical analysis: Quarterly progress report no. 21 and Project Whirlwind summary report no. 47. https://archivesspace.mit.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/277015. Accessed 2 Nov 2020.

26.

Rees, Mina. 1980, October. The mathematical sciences and World War II. The American Mathematical Monthly 87 (8): 607–621.

27.

———. 1987. The computing program at the Office of Naval Research, 1946-1953. Communications of the ACM 30 (10): 831–848.CrossRef

28.

Tropp, Henry. 1974, February. The effervescent years: A retrospective. IEEE Spectrum 11 (2): 70–79.

29.

———. 2003. Mauchly, John H. In Encyclopedia of computer science, 1109–1110. Chichester: Wiley.

30.

von Neumann, John. 1946/1993. First draft of a report on the EDVAC. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 15 (4): 27–43.MathSciNetCrossRef

31.

———. 1989. The principles of large-scale computing machines. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 10 (4): 243–256.MathSciNetCrossRef

32.

Waterman, Alan T. 148/185. New vistas in mathematics. In Proceedings of a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery, 298–302. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

33.

Wilkes, Maurice V. 1985. Memoirs of a computer pioneer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Title: Sharing Information (or Not) for Computer Development
Author: Bernadette Longo
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Words and Power
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70372-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-70373-8

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70373-8_4

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Premium Partner