Charles Babbage Institute

Prompted by the wartime need for rapid, complex mathematical calculations, the United States government became heavily involved in computer research and development during World War II. Government agencies including the US Navy, the National Bureau of Standards, and NASA continued to sponsor computer research and development projects in the post-war period, many still related to military applications. Early government investment in computer technologies provided a basis for the nascent computer industry. Government agencies and the research institutions with which they collaborated generated a wide variety of reports, manuals, and other documentation.

Computer research and development at academic research institutions in the United States intensified during World War II, prompted by the United States government's wartime need for rapid, complex mathematical calculations. The nation's research institutions continued computer research and development projects into the Cold War years, many still supported by the government and related to military applications. Universities are often identified with certain developments in information processing. For example, the first real-time text / graphic display was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the Whirlwind computer; the Aloha protocol for radio packet switching was developed for the University of Hawaii's ALOHA system. Research institutions and the government agencies that sponsored them generated a wide variety of reports, manuals, and other documentation.

From the early 1950s, companies and professional organizations began to create taxonomies to standardize the language used to describe computing and software. These reference works were most often in the form of glossaries.

Prompted by the wartime need for rapid, complex mathematical calculations, the United States government became heavily involved computer research and development during World War II. Government agencies including the US Navy, the National Bureau of Standards, and NASA continued to sponsor computer research and development projects in the post-war period, many still related to military applications. Early government investment in computer technologies provided a basis for the nascent computer industry. Government agencies and the research institutions with which they collaborated generated a wide variety of reports, manuals, and other documentation.

During the 1970s and 1980s, all types of computing communities began to print and distribute informal serial publications concerning software, mini-and micro computing,. Many of these publications were short lived - some survived for only an issue or two - and most were produced in small quantities. These materials, with their unusual artwork and printing techniques have become interesting artifacts themselves, while providing today’s researchers with an "alternative" perspective on developments in computing and software during those decades.

Glossaries collected by the Charles Babbage Institute.

This collection has been formed at the Charles Babbage Institute to readily accommodate numerous accessions related to computing outside the United States.

Charles Babbage was a prominent 19th century British mathematician, inventor, and philosopher.

By 1948, computer manufacturers prepared printed materials - product literature -- to advertise and explicate their products to potential customers. Product literature was created for an audience of government agencies, corporations, and later, individuals.

By the late 1940s, corporations, research institutes, government agencies, and others had begun to compile and publish reference works in the form of bibliographies on automation and computing.

Engineering Research Associates (ERA) was founded in 1946 in an effort to continue the work of a classified war-time Navy cryptology unit called Communications Supplementary Activity -Washington (CSAW). A technological group, headed by former CSAW supervisors Howard T. Engstrom and William C. Norris, and former head of the Naval Computing Machine Laboratory Ralph I. Meader, joined with investment banker John Parker to establish the company. Parker was the former head of Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation (NAC), a St. Paul, Minnesota firm that made gliders during World War II. ERA established a small office in Arlington, Virginia, but the majority of ERA's workforce was located in the former NAC facility in St. Paul.ERA became a division of Remington Rand in 1952. In 1955, Remington Rand and the Sperry Corporation merged to become the Sperry Rand Corporation and ERA became part of the company's Univac Division.Bibliography"Engineering Research Associates: The wellspring of Minnesota's computer industry" (St. Paul: Sperry Communications Dept., 1986).Tomash, Erwin and Arnold E. Cohen. "The Birth of ERA: Engineering Research Associates Inc. 1946-1955." In Annals of the History of Computing 1:2 (October 1979).

Collection of product manuals from computer companies organized by the Charles Babbage Institute.

This collection has been formed at the Charles Babbage Institute to readily accommodate numerous small accessions related to academic computing by a number of individuals and institutions.

This collection was formed at the Charles Babbage Institute to readily accommodate numerous accessions of reports by consulting firms related to computer hardware, software, systems, and the computer industry by a number of individuals and institutions.

Bibliographies collected by the Charles Babbage Institute.

Engineering Research Associates (ERA) was founded in 1946 in an effort to continue the work of a classified war-time Navy cryptology unit called Communications Supplementary Activity -Washington (CSAW). A technological group, headed by former CSAW supervisors Howard T. Engstrom and William C. Norris, and former head of the Naval Computing Machine Laboratory Ralph I. Meader, joined with investment banker John Parker to establish the company. Parker was the former head of Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation (NAC), a St. Paul, Minnesota firm that made gliders during World War II. ERA established a small office in Arlington, Virginia, but the majority of ERA's workforce was located in the former NAC facility in St. Paul.

ERA became a division of Remington Rand in 1952. In 1955, Remington Rand and the Sperry Corporation merged to become the Sperry Rand Corporation and ERA became part of the company's Univac Division.

Warren P. Burrell

Warren P. Burrell graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BEE in 1948 and joined Engineering Research Associates as an assistant engineer working in computer development that same year. Burrell was involved in such projects as the ERA 1101, ERA 1103, the UNIVAC File Computer, NIKE-X, and XU-71.

John Lindsay Hill

John Lindsay Hill graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a BSEE in 1930. He worked as project engineer for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing before joining Engineering Research Associates as an electrical engineer in 1946. At ERA, Hill supervised development of the ERA 1101 and several other projects including a message storage and relay system for stored flight plans using magnetic drums for the Civil Aeronautics Administration. In 1956, Hill was placed in charge of the UNIVAC project. Later he worked for Ramsey Engineering.

Jay A. Kershaw

Jay A. Kershaw graduated from the University of Minnesota with a BEE in 1950. He joined ERA in 1951 as an electrical engineer in computer development. Kershaw worked on development of magnetic recording techniques and materials, and the Logistics Computer. He became peripherals manager for the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) project in the early 1960s. Kershaw left Sperry Univac to work in management for Control Data Corporation and later for Control Data's subsidiary, Control Data Worldtech.

Charles Babbage is often called the "father of computing", though there is no evidence that modern electronic computers are direct descendants of his work. He acquired this title mainly because his Difference Engine (1821), which printed tables of polynomials, and his Analytical Engine (1856), which was intended as a general symbol manipulator, were inventions far more complex than the work of any of his contemporaries.

Unfortunately, little remains of Babbage’s prototype computing machines. One reason is that critical tolerances required by Babbage’s machines exceeded the level of technology available at the time. Also, though formal recognition of his work was tendered by respected institutions such as the Astronomical Society of London, the British government suspended funding for his Difference Engine in 1832, and after an agonizing waiting period, finally killed the project in 1842. Thus, there remain only fragments of Babbage’s prototype Difference Engine, and though he devoted most of his time and large fortune towards construction of his Analytical Engine after 1856, he never succeeded in completing any of his several designs for it. George Scheutz, a Swedish printer, successfully constructed a machine based on the designs for Babbage’s Difference Engine in 1854. This machine printed mathematical, astronomical and actuarial tables with unprecedented accuracy, and was used by the British and American governments. Though Babbage’s work was continued by his son, Henry Prevost Babbage, after his death in 1871, the Analytical Engine was never successfully completed, and ran only a few “programs” with embarrassingly obvious errors.

Babbage’s contributions to science also include his work as a mathematician and his reform of the teaching of mathematics in British universities. He also attempted to reform the scientific organizations of the period while calling upon government and society to give more money and prestige to scientific endeavor.