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jducoeurGoing through all the books has turned up a lot of interesting reading matter, but it's also turned up the occasional surprise that just happened to be sitting on the bookshelves. Possibly the most surprising is material indicating that Jane's mother Catherine had learned how to use a computer -- in 1959.
She never made the slightest reference to it -- indeed, I never saw her use a modern computer, although I think it likely she knew word-processing -- but the materials seem clear. I found a telegram, inviting her (back in her assistant-professor days) to take a course on programming a Univac the week of August 31st, 1959. And elsewhere on the bookcase, I found a ton of related materials: a Univac manual, notes, and a thing that looks vaguely like a circular slide rule whose use I am entirely unclear on. I assume we inherited it when she died ten years ago, and Jane never got around to filing any of it.
Very neat stuff, although once again I find myself wishing there was *someone* left from the family that I could ask about this...
She never made the slightest reference to it -- indeed, I never saw her use a modern computer, although I think it likely she knew word-processing -- but the materials seem clear. I found a telegram, inviting her (back in her assistant-professor days) to take a course on programming a Univac the week of August 31st, 1959. And elsewhere on the bookcase, I found a ton of related materials: a Univac manual, notes, and a thing that looks vaguely like a circular slide rule whose use I am entirely unclear on. I assume we inherited it when she died ten years ago, and Jane never got around to filing any of it.
Very neat stuff, although once again I find myself wishing there was *someone* left from the family that I could ask about this...
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Date: 2012-09-25 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 05:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 08:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-09-26 04:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-26 11:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 05:19 pm (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule#Circular_slide_rules
(I really like the idea of having one on a ring!)
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Date: 2012-09-25 05:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 05:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 06:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 07:59 pm (UTC)You’re welcome — no charge!
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Date: 2012-09-25 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-25 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-26 03:05 am (UTC)This page (http://www.computer-history.info/Page4.dir/pages/Univac.dir/index.html) talks about the Univac having used a programming style called Minimum Latency Coding which apparently meant laying out the program in such a way that the next operands would become available just as they were needed, which seems to lend support to my theory.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-26 12:01 pm (UTC)Re the circular slide rule
Date: 2012-09-29 09:20 pm (UTC)The easiest way to write code was to put the instructions in sequential order - but since the drum spun past two or three memory slots during the typical instruction, that resulted in nearly the slowest execution time, since the drum would have to spin an entire time around before it got to the next instruction.
IBM provided an assembly program called SOAP -the "Symbolic Optimum Assembly Program" - which optimized the location of instructions. As a freshman at Cornell in the spring of 1958, I convinced the Cornell COmputing Center to adopt SOAP and wired the board for it.
Dad
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-26 05:20 am (UTC)http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Univac+computer
I've heard, not about this simple calculator, but about some of the games hackers could play with drum memory, by, for example, deliberately using WORST latency rather than best.
Sadly, none of the descriptions of Minimum Latency Programming that I could find gave me enough information to *quite* see how the calculator should be used.
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Date: 2012-09-26 11:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-26 01:29 pm (UTC)