It’s funny to look back at how bulky computers used to be. I mean, there is no way this thing would fit in a manila envelope.

Computer Cuts Farm Figuring
Farmers who dislike paper work now can solve many types of mathematical farm problems with a computer that shows the desired information at a glance. The computer consists of four metal disks containing arrows, figures and windows. By setting up known information on the disks, the farmer can quickly determine the desired figure. For example, the computer will calculate the price of a given weight of any kind of grain, the value of land and livestock, the number of gallons of milk in a given number of pounds and the value of several cases of eggs when the price per dozen is known.

If you’re interested in Automation we have a great Scientific American series from 1952.

How Automation Will Affect Your Job

New skills, a shorter work week and more leisure time will be yours in 1975—thanks to machines with “brains”!

By Robert Bendiner

THE YEAR is 1975. For a man of 50 leaving a factory gate at five in the afternoon, you look remarkably fresh. Your light, comfortable-looking summer suit is pressed and spotless, your face and hands are free of grime, and your features show no sign of the strain that men once associated with the heat and noise of a big factory. There is an extra spring in your step as you walk toward the heliport, perhaps because this is Thursday. Your four-day work week is over, and ahead of you are three full days to call your own.

Are you a pampered relative of the owner, or perhaps the owner himself? Not at all. You are an ordinary factory hand—in charge of “preventive tool maintenance” for your section. You have been with the Peerless Auto Parts Company for 25 years, one of the lucky ones who were trained by management for the great changeover to automation that occurred in the mid-’60s.

The Cybernated Generation

Purring like contented kittens, the most remarkable support crew ever assembled kept unceasing vigil last week as Gemini spun through space with its two passengers. At Cape Kennedy and at the space complex in Houston, at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and at 14 other sites from the Canary Islands to the South Indian Ocean, dozens of electronic computers guided, watched, advised and occasionally admonished the two astronauts. In fact, the Space Age’s first orbiting digital computer, a hatbox-sized model that can make 7,000 separate calculations a second; went along for the ride in Gemini. No space effort—American or Russian—had ever before made such extensive use of the computer, or depended more on it.

“Mechanical Brain” Works Out Mathematical Engineering Problems

A DIFFERENTIAL analyzer, or “mechanical brain,” has been designed by Dr. Vannevar Bush, Dean of the School of Engineering of the Massachusetts School of Technology, which will relieve the engineer and scientist of the burden of making computations which are mechanical and repetitive.

The photo on the right shows the inventor watching his new calculating machine working out a mathematical problem. The charted curves on the input table represent part of the data of the problem in the form in which it is presented to the machine for solution.

Where a number of Computations must be made, this rapid mechanical device will save the user several minutes, and eliminate the many possibilities of errors which creep into lengthy or detailed computations which must be made by hand, with a slide rule, or with the aid of other mechanical machines.

Let’s see, I’m publishing an article about computers, what should I use for a picture? I know! People writing on a plotter with pencils. Nothing says welcome to the computer age better than pencils!

ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS – what they are and what they do

AUTOMATION has given new importance to electronic computers. From automatic factories to magazine subscriptions, they are becoming a part of our daily life. More applications are constantly being found for computers large and small.

There are two different types of computers: the digital, which uses numbers or digits, and the analog, which uses a measure, such as voltage, current, or angle of rotation.

While large-scale digital computers have captured the headlines, both types are important. Many more analog than digital computers are now in use although both analog and digital techniques are used in some computers. There are, however, striking differences between the two types. Each has applications where it is best suited; each has good features as well as disadvantages.