This is a fantastic article about the IBM ASCC (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator), or Harvard Mark I. The first large-scale automatic digital computer in the USA.
Some interesting facts about the ASCC:
- It cost $250,000 in 1944 dollars.
- It could calculate using numbers with up to 23 signifigant digits. These were set with an array of 1,440 dials (check out the picture below)
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It took 3/10 second for add/subtract, 5.8 for multiplication and 14.7 seconds for division.
- It weighed 35 tons and was powered by a 2 horse-power motor. (With mhz, ghz, mb, gb, tb, dpi, ms, bps, etc don’t you think it’s time hp got back into the computer lexicon?)
- It contained 500 miles of wire
I was surprised to see a reference to the Harvard Supercomputing laboratory. I would have thought that supercomputing was a much newer term, but according to Wikipedia, it dates from 1929.
Robot Mathematician Knows All the Answers
Thirty-five tons of dials, wheels, and wires knock out problems that would take the best human expert a lifetime.
By VOLTA TORREY
SOME boy may soon work his way through Harvard University by watching a 51-foot switchboard all night in an air-conditioned basement. Behind its polished panels, electricity will be solving the longest and most difficult mathematical problems ever conceived. It will be doing everything that is known to be mathematically possible with such numbers as 12,743,287,341,045,502,372,098.
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Camera Coughs Out Finished Prints
YOUR present camera performs only one of many steps—developing, fixing, printing, and so on—involved in making a photograph. Edwin H. Land, 38-year-old president of the Polaroid Corporation, has invented a one-step process in which the camera does everything. With his camera, you snap the shutter and turn a knob; 60 seconds later you have a finished, dry print. The Land camera takes its pictures in the conventional way, but inside it, in addition to the film roll, there is a roll of positive paper with a pod of developing chemicals at the top of each frame. Turning the knob forces the exposed negative and the paper together through rollers, breaking the pod and spreading the reagents evenly between the two layers as they emerge from the rear of the camera. Clipped off, they can be peeled apart a minute later.
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Auto Fuel From Cow Manure
Germans are being forced to search everywhere for new sources of power—even in their own pastures.
By Heinrich Hauser
THERE’S an old European proverb which says you can measure the extent of a farmer’s prosperity by the height of his manure pile. That saying is closer to the truth today in Germany than it has ever been before.
A German inventor named Harnisch has developed a simple device which converts manure into fuel. And this fuel is used to drive autos and tractors as well as provide household power.
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Private “air truck” for Very Special Delivery
… powered by Lycoming
When deliveries are Rush with a capital “R” . . . today’s progressive businessman turns to a small company plane that relieves him of dependence on the schedules of commercial air-freight systems.
Take the case of the Capital City Printing Plate Company of Des Moines, Iowa . . . operator of a Piper Tri-Pacer powered by Lycoming. Gene C. Meston, General Manager, says: “We could not maintain our production and sales level without the Tri-Pacer. The airplane and the pilot do the work of two trucks and three drivers. We save a lot of expense and keep our customers well satisfied.”
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Modern Methods Improve Ancient Tattooing Art
TATTOOING is one of the most ancient arts in the world. Even before man had learned to write—and centuries before he could print—he practiced the art of pricking various designs and symbols and pictures into the human skin.
Down through the ages men and women have tattooed themselves for a wide variety of reasons. Early tribes tattooed their faces to make themselves appear more ferocious and powerful in battle. Other tribes tattooed their whole bodies as a protection from the rays of the sun and from the eyes of their enemies. Then the custom sprang up of tattooing the various parts of the body for religious purposes, or to show membership in a certain family or clan, or to make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex, or as evidence that a youth had reached the marriageable age.
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Wow, anthropomorphizing a buffer…. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel… Am I supposed to be attracted to my buffer? Erm, excuse me… Handheld Workshop.
Meet “SUZY” -a POWERFUL good friend to have around the house!
“SUZY”
polishes, drills
brushes, mixes paint, saws, buffs, sharpens, sands, scrapes, grinds, routs
“SUZY KIT” — a complete workshop including a 1/4 h.p. PORTABLE POWERHOUSE and 27 PIECES, all for only $24.95
Let “SUZY” do it!
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