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)
• 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.

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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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Pandiculate For Health
BE WELL YOUNG STRONG
Fifteen glorious minutes on Pandiculator better than two hours in gymnasium. Refreshes, rejuvenates. Helps retain youth, energy. vigor, vim. Wonderful results. Doctors recommend it. No electricity, no discomfort; delightfully restful. Write for Free Booklet.
PANDICULATOR CO., 643 Hanna Blde.. Cleveland, Ohio

Electric Mask Removes Lines and Sags From Milady’s Face

BEAUTY may be spiritual, but it seems to thrive best on mechanical aids. Proof of this may be found in an electric face moulding mask recently introduced by Dr. Joseph Brueck, Viennese and New York beauty specialist. In the mask is embedded a battery of heating coils which generate a warmth that quickly banishes lines, wrinkles and sags from milady’s face whether they be due to age, illness or hard work.

While milady is being made beautiful, she breathes through a tube set between the lips of the mask, and views the world through eyes cut where eyes should be.

TRAILERETTE built by Charles Rucker of Flint Mich., for his seven year-old son, Billy, is 32 inches wide and 40 inches high. Billy hauls it around with his battery-powered “hot rod.”

Eat Lightning
Startling Stunts

Do amazing feats with electricity! Make bolts of lightning, crashing thunder, figures of fire, ghostly glows, mystifying illusions. Make a robot sing, dance, answer questions, amuse any audience. Book gives detailed instructions for making all apparatus and the patter for a half-hour act. Postpaid $1.
CUTTING & SONS 102 Doe Street, Campbell, California

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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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Golf Game Is Right Up Bowlers Alley
Features of both bowling and golf are combined in a novel indoor game recently introduced in Boston, Mass. Using a regulation golf club, a player hits a golf ball down a small-size bowling alley in an attempt to knock over diminutive pins. Three shots are allowed at each set-up of the pins. In the photograph at the left, a feminine enthusiast is shown about to send her second shot down the alley in an effort to hit the pins.

Theremin Cellos Win Music Public in “Electric Concert”

THE electric cello, developed recently by Leon Theremin, has now been accepted by the music public as an instrument of high artistic merit.

At a symphony concert of electric music given a short while ago at Carnegie Hall, New York City, the electric cello made a sensational debut in a program consisting of selections from the old music masters— Bach, Haydn, Debussy, and others.
Producing exquisite tones, with both extremes of volume, the electric cellos have as their innards vacuum tubes whose oscillations are controlled by levers and coils on the instrument.