.ONE OF THE GREAT MISCALCULATIONS IN IBM HISTORY
In the early 1950′s, we took a hard look at the future for business computer systems.
Our best estimate, at the time, was a potential of 50 new customers.
Computers
.BIZMAC at Bat—”Brain” Predicts 1957 Averages
Early in March, when the Army Ordnance Command’s BIZMAC computer was demonstrated publicly for the first time, the operators used it to predict batting averages for the 1957 season. Twelve of the leading major league baseball players were “analyzed” by the computer, which based its predictions on the players’ averages for the past five years.
.Public Key Cryptography
An introduction to a powerful cryptographic system for use on microcomputers.
John Smith
21505 Evalyn Ave.
Torrance, CA 90503Cryptography, the art of concealing the meaning of messages, has been practiced for at least 3000 years. In the past few centuries, it has become an indispensable tool in the military affairs, diplomacy, and commerce of most major nations. During that time there have been many innovations, and cryptography has changed and grown to accommodate the increasingly complex needs of its users. Present techniques are very sophisticated and provide excellent message protection. Current developments in computer technology and information theory, however, are on the verge of revolutionizing cryptography. New kinds of cryptographic systems are emerging that have incredible properties, which appear to eliminate completely some problems that have plagued cryptography users for centuries. One of these new systems is public key cryptography.
.Navy Brain Answers with Pictures
By George H. Waltz, Jr.
PS PHOTOS BY HUBERT LUCKETTCOMPLEX problems can now be reduced to three-dimensional, easy-to-understand answers by “Typhoon,” the latest thing in electronic brains. Built by the RCA Laboratories for the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the new computer is showing naval experts just how theoretical guided missiles will react in actual flight.
Up until the completion of the new $1,400,000 calculator a few months ago, the men whose job it is to create new and better guided missiles had to spend thousands of hours at complicated computations and many months at building full-size $100,000 test models. And when they were finished, there was no guarantee that the new missile would perform as expected.
.ENGINEERS… RCA IS NOW CREATING TOMORROW’S MOST ADVANCED, COMPREHENSIVE ELECTRONIC DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS!
Past-moving computer advances at RCA call for many more computer engineers. If you have a BS or advanced degree and at least 2 years’ design and development experience … this is your opportunity to team up with RCA scientists whose far-reaching new systems concepts utilize the latest digital techniques to broaden the scope of the electronic data processing field.
.Safety Computer Forecasts Atomic Fall-out Pattern
How “safe” is it to test an atom bomb ? Will wind-blown radioactive dust or charged rain clouds endanger life or crops in inhabited regions?
The National Bureau of Standards recently developed a “portable” analog computer to assist in predicting radioactive fall-out from a nuclear explosion. The fall-out pattern appears instantly on oscilloscope (left of photo) after weather data and the size and type of bomb are “told to” the computer by setting dials. As computers go, “portable” means that it will fit into a truck.
Wind-carried fall-out even from “small” atomic tests has traveled as far as Paris and Tokyo when caught in the “jet stream” of the upper atmosphere.
.TOTS Try Toys
Before trying to sell a new product toy maker Oliver Garfield (Toy Development Co.) tests child reactions to them.Garfield and physicist Arthur Pinker-ton assemble Geniac, a toy electronic brain that flashes replies to queries.
TV WHIZ KID
Steve Allen, 13, with color TV he designed and built. Atherton, Calif., boy has been an electrical prodigy since the age of two.Steve, whose color set was among first 100 in San Francisco area, made over $1000 last year repairing sets in his neighborhood.
.Apple Announces the Lisa 2
by Gregg Williams
When several of us at BYTE saw the Macintosh, we were seriously concerned about the fate of the Lisa in the face of the Macintosh, a machine that is one-third its price and clearly superior in some areas. Apple has answered these concerns by announcing two versions of the Lisa 2, along with the Macintosh, at its annual stockholders’ meeting on January 24.
.ANELEX
Anelex High Speed Line Printers are standard equipment in the data processing systems of almost every major computer manufacturer here and abroad.
Further information available upon request
ANelex Corporation
157 Causeway Street, Boston 14, Massachusetts
.“Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Computer Is the Smartest Way to Write”
Our word processing system changed Isaac Asimov’s mind about writing-and he’s a renowned science and science fiction author! But you don’t have to be an author to use a TRS-80. If you prepare memos, letters and reports-do what Isaac did. It will change your mind, too.
“I may never use a typewriter again!” Isaac likes the time he saves using SuperSCRIPSIT™ (26-1590, $199), our newest word processing program. “For example, I can assign frequently-used words and phrases to a user-defined key. So whenever I press that
