91 CLA Im IR u I L THIS ' DOCUMENT IS BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE TIE COPY FU-RNISKED TO DTIC CONTAINED A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF NOT DO WHICH PAGES P-'PRODUCE LEGIBLY REPRODUCED FROM BEST AVAILABLE COPY DIGITAL COMPUTER to t 141 vmuf Of NAM d 4#144dCM d IWCJIW w 4 _m 7 No Ni I______ ol 0 00 rm jaitiuaiy 1% 5 TAI1llIb OF 2ONIKNTSI A Alierlt'ms'ki i P'roi N v A I ProviiM Na n 1 14AV DAV mil jirmindi it mtut hilmi mit' rm Cumtvlhimlit i r a 4 h11 IAAC lHit Ino A iwt tu i iti AtA Iiiem I Stmy 6 Flit' MANIAC 7 Whi rlwimil I Hl REAIIIX 1 ELECOM A0 UNIVAC File Ciikmaptt'r 11 The SPIEEDAC S k I ict rmtii it Ctomm titr Pro' it'o COMPONENTS FUROPEAN NOTES 1 -N Bi rkbeck Colluei' al iotial Physical Labo ratu ry Teddirigton MT Mechatlical Tran slat ioni NEW PUB1LICATION to DCN NEWS NOTICE D E ITEMS r Ib b Approved by The Under Secretary of the Navy 16 August 1954 LGH0L COMPUTIRS A1I11MDUKN PRtUVUU UOUNDI CUMiPUT91tU Malchine hourn or ihp thrvv hilh NpriId •'ilnlmloe'ra foil' the averate wook for tho iwriod 11h11 41thih o 100 I20 Noyelnihor I1014 are sl follows t800 ijanlklr1y 04 OItDVAC 11 9 tlehoheaiedt Kithi4 oinge i'otal I C10 Che1r01 irl'oducitlel IdMP 44 1 30 4 7n 0 oI4 ineerilg 11 3 1i0 8M 0 7 1ta 0 Toial Available' Sltanudby UnsvitilAblo TOT A i XDVAC 20 01 maw 540 31413 41 11 4110 lI IA4 166 0 to's MIL_ sal - 10 0 Contracts for ia 10 00 0 word ntaglnlti- drum And a 4 090 word italic mallnotio memory for the OtWAC have be n let and delivvry of the oqutlimoew is expet ed in the spring of 1055 A new ordor typo' selector has beene built and Installed in the EDVAC removing a source if frequent brr %kdowna The CHC-105 Digital Differential Ana lyser has passed its ac'ceptance tests NAVAL PROVINO GRQUND COMPUTIEW During the past quarter the Aiken Pahlgren Electronic Calculator and the Aiken Relay Calculator htave been uused to solve urgent ballistic problems on a twenty-four hour six dsy a week schedule Conslderaible emphasis has been placed on testing the new Naval Ordnance Research Calculator NORC and on planning for its installation The calculator is now in New York and will be installed at the Naval Proving Ground Dahlgren Virginia early in 1955 During the design of the NORC the Bureau of Ordnance appointeu a technical committee consisting of machine experts from the Bureau of Ordnance the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and the Naval Proving Ground to participate in the formulation of a detailed design characteristics of the machine Salient characteristics of the machine are as follows Peneral Decimal number system used throughout Serial digit-by-digit operation Automatic fixed and floating decimal point operation I Q d 3ECU U ze place decimal numbers plus sign and 2-digit number designating power of 10 J A ord is represented by 64 bits plus two check bits tructions O'19N AVAILjAJtIy C ýree-address instructions including automatic modification of each address by three I store4 modifiers AVAIL n ur WECIAL' -2- fi3 dilsiprill tills raoi hil Fs A minitle hi nt rilvi i vonlro t d hcs vonsp'i r lirwismis %itrunait in ot writing a tilook ol words iicth oilwirat iono lier second -each aduN athiltioti or MWrw thah 14 000 tr' operation inclukding automilat ii floatingi or fixiiii dievinial Ixmint t'on%1 utitirg automiatic addrens modifloAtion and miutiiatit c'hocking tit arithnivlth' klorages and trarianiuwion it numbers and Inatructionx Cipacivtyý 3 000 worids of 38 10011111 dligitii rwvieeowmds or use or rogonoration 135 000 per1 second Spod ONP wnrd overy 8iie AIt hT ttle Unit Two universal electronic regIsteris Speed 1 000 000 decimal digits per second Addition time 15 microaeconds excluding memory avecoam checking etc Multiply time 31 microseconds oxcluding memory access checking etc Division time 327 microseconds excluding memory access checking etc Serial multiplication table Operations checked by cunting out nines Magetic Tap Storage and Input -Qutout Eight high-speed magnetic tape units Taps may be read in either direction written on in forward direction Reading may include searching for a specified block With certain limitations blocks can be rewritten within a tape Recording in four parallel ctwzonels at a density of 510 characters per inch Capacity of one reel 350 000-450 000 words depending ul on the average block length Distance between blocks 1 5 inches Time of acceleration of writing or reading speed 10 'ilscna Rate of reading or writing a black 71 500 characters per second 3985 words per second Checking Tape reading is chocked by a bit count modulo 4 accompanying each word and by end -of- word and end-of-block characters Electrostatic storage Is checked continuously by bit-count verification and a greater-thannine check on the digits every time a word is read in read ou t or regenerated Transmission of number and instructions is checked by the bit count -3- rho arithrioelki MPel In thk'it'khl lty ani IixillarV •ompkIer oi•ip'atting on tho baipl of t'atitllg oiUt 1InIMn Tho rtigintormt count and thp a re 'hovkod •ly Ih bli 01tolnt and si' ol ottl nilol sritvhntoti valilni hck rinotml dimplay of vontoni•n of the two sAithmoilnl S It I Ioiiiotl rotlitermr point between bit intruction roegistr control aind addroes nioditior regiitoers Controls for nmanual oporation Indicator lighto showing problonl and calculator otaiuo Two printers Speed 150 lines per minute with 11i digits or 7 word per line Only one of the printers can be operating at any given time Printing Interrupts computing program other than input outkut operations for only 10 milliaeconda of the 400-millisecond print cycle Printing In chocked by verification of the bit count acco iras ying each word via the echo contacts of the printer The contract of the Computer Control Company Inc with the Navy for the operation maintenance and mathematical and programming serviceta for the Raydac has been renewed The computer is operating on a one-shift basis The Raydac is now available and pro ductive 75 percent of the time Programming and machine time is available to Bureau of Aeronautics contractors Navy agencies and contractors and other government agencies and contractoriR The charge for machino time is $40 00 per hour Arrangements for time may be made with Bureau of Aeronautics EL 4251 Department of the Navy Washington 25 D C ILLIA University of Illinois The demand for Illiac time for university work has increased so that it became necessary to operate the machine on a 2 i-huur basis live uAys a wuek stArting in the summer of 1954 About four hours of each day are devoted to scheduled maintenance and about one more hour each day is devoted to unscheduled maintenance 7'hus about 19 hours per day are available as useful time from the machine Approximately four of the 19 hours each day are set aside for government sponsored research leaving about 15 hours per day available for unsponsored work The machine continues to be used on a very wide variety of problems with about 100 different persons making use of the machine during an academic semester An impo ant addition to the Illiac during the last summer was the incorporation of a cathode-ray tube unit which makes it possible to plot a single point from a single output order rather than punching paper tape as was the usual case The raster provided on the cathoderay tube has a resolution of 28 spots in both the x and y axes Work is continuing on the incorporation of a magnetic drum memory into the ILliac Analytical results as well as a set of circuit values have resulted from a study of certain direct-coupled transistor computer circuits The analysis has taken into account the tolerances -4- on all of 1w parts ot the ci cuits The flip-flop circuits comprising point contact transistors are the weakest part of the circuit group Most point contact transistors cannot be kept within the tolerance band requited for safe operation for this particular class of circuits Work has continued on the program library for the Illiac which is intended for general use by the faculty and studenta of the University Each program is written up in detail and punched on heavy teletype tape whith is thern fil' d in an open file All library routines are used with the same input and assembly ro dine Copies of individual programs within the library are sent outside to interested laboratories where some usefulness can be derived from them At present the library is divided into two parts an active library and an auxiliary library The active library containing the most-used and most important programs now has 78 programs in it The auxiliary library contains 27 less-used programs formerly in the active library as well as a considerable number of special programs written for their own use by i dividuals in the lJniversity and placed on file for reference All users of the machine must assume their own programing responsibilities - THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY - ELECTRONIC COMPUTER PROJECT The changes in the operating voltage levels of the Williams memory mentioned in the last Newsletter were completed As a result of this changeover a new maintenance test was devised Since the read-around characteristics of a machine can be improved at the cost of dash storage the new code is used to find the optimal read-around ratio subject to the requirements of reliable dash storage A large hydrodynamical calculation is now in progress It is concerned with the mixing of two fluids which at the start of the problem are in equilibrium with the heavier above the lighter one The equilibrium is under the action of gravity and the motion is started by a small perturbation of the common interface between the two fluids In addition to this a number of other problems are in the process of solution and reports are being ljrepared on them An extensive calculation was undertaken of successive partial quotients of the continued fraction expansion of roots of a given polynomial with integer coefficients It is desired to determine distribution functions of these partial quotients for comparison with known theorems about the corresponding distributions for random numbers A brief note on this work has been submitted to Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation An extensive analysis is now being undertaken of the data and it is expected that a more detailed paper will be submitted to an appropriate journal in the near future THE MANIAC Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Los Alamos New Mexico Some time ago the MANIAC completed 10 000 hours of successful operation The efficiency determined as the ratio of successful operation to the sum of a c on time plus down time was 77 % over that period Design and development of a new Maniac has started It is planned to have approximately 10 000 words of random access electrostatic storage Both floating binary point and fixed point operation are included The former is not of the usual form where the exponent is interpreted as the power to the base 2 Instead it is intended to use a very large base say 216 The fractional part of the number is represented by a sign and 43 bits and the exponent by say a signed 3-bit number The advantage of such a large radix is that most of the arithmetical operations are effectively done in fixed point and only occasionally is shifting necessary Hence one obtains the high speeds of arithmetical operations without much pain and at the same time has the flexibility provided by floating point operation The vocabulary contains about fifty orders almost all are half-word It is also planned to include orders that effect the Ferranti B-mode of operation Restricted uýe of magnetic tape is intended similar to that in the presen computer but faster in operation Use of a square root order is contemplated -5- WHIRLWIND I Appli cat ions During the past 3 months the ScAentific and Engineering Computation Group in conjunction with various departments at MIT processed 62 problems for solution on Whirlwind I These problems are described in the Project Whirlwind Summary Reports submitted to the Office of Naval Research A procedure has been developed to eliminate most of the need for manual intervention in reading in the tapes for different problems during a computing period The procedure makes use of a specially prepared director tape which communicates with the computer through a separate input reader The various problem tapes together with suitable post-mortemrequest tapes are spliced together in the proper sequence The complete run is then effected under the control of the director tape by a single push on the read-in button Systems Fngineering A newly written program locates and identifies troubles in WWI terminal equipment The diagnosis printed out by the computer includes the nature of the trouble and its location and sometimes identifies by number the tube in the offending circuit This program is applicable only to terminal equipment and it does not appear that its use can be further extended In a recent test a tube previously removed from the computer because of low emission was placed in socket V08 of the plug-in unit in Bay 2 lack 10 of the drum system in a few seconds the direct typewriter printed d 0-7 fail g 0 ck write gate ampVO8b2jlO In plain English digits 0 through 7 failed in Group 0 the cause being the write-gate amplifier tube V08 in Bay 2 Sack 10 The program works on the assumption that each trouble has a unique set of symptoms If the program ever runs into a set of symptoms which is not in its catalogue it gives an indication of these symptoms Later when the trouble is found by old fashioned means it too can be included in the catalogue of troubles Academic Program The principal course on machine computation being offered at MIT in the fall of 1954 was 6 25 Machine-Aided Analysis a survey of computing techniques intended largely for seniors in Electrical Engineering This subject first offered in the spring of 1954 had a fall-term enrollment of about 55 seniors and graduate students Practice problems were planned to allow each student to uke both a REAC and the Whirlwind I computer simulating the hypothetical Three-Address Computer developed for the 1954 Summer Session Exercises using desk calculators and a card-programmed calculator which were included in the first presentation of the course were eliminated in this second presentation to permit more time for studying techniques of problem and error analysis 4 READIX J B Rea Company The Readix General-Purpose Digital Computer is a serial binary-coded decimal singleaddress machine with a magnetic drum storage capacity of 4 000 words Each word consists of 10 decimal digits with sign or two commands complete with addresses The machine uses the decimal system for all internal operations and has standardized plug-in units and a large magnetic drum memory Standard input-output equipment is an electric typewriter with associated punched paper tape equipment attached Magnetic tape punched card and point plotter equipment can also be supplied to operate with the READIX -6- The Electronic Computer Division of Underwood Corporation has announced the ELECOM model 120-A computer A development of the ELECOM model 120 the 120-A computer features 1 2 3 4 A ten decimal digit word length Memory capacity of from 1 000 to 10 000 words Base Registers available as optional features Automatic Floating Decimal operation as an optional feature The first two ELECOM model 120-A computers are scheduled for delivery to the Sandia Corporation Albuquerque New Mexico early in the summer of 1955 The Sandia ELECOMS will have 4 000 word memories and one of the computers will contain Automatic Floating Decimal operation The final ELECOM 120 is scheduled for deli•very to Redstone Arsenal Huntsvillel Alabama early in 1955 Deliveries of ELECOM 120s to Griffiss Air Force Base Rome New York and Republic Aviation Corporation Farmingdale Long Island New York were made during October and November 1954 The first ELECOM model 125 Electronic Business System will be installed at Mallory Air Force Depot Memphis Tennessee in the spring of 1955 Mallory Depot will use the ELECOM 125 for Inventory Control The ELECOM 125 system includes an electronic sorting and collating unit called the ELECOM File Processor The File Processor operates as an independent unit and features an acoustic quartz line memory operating at microsecond speed The Underwood-ELECOM Tapewriter a device for preparing printed paper tape to be used as one of the inputs to the ELECOM 125 System was exhibited at the rbcent Joint Computer Conference in Philadelphia December 8 9 and 10 1954 UNIVAC FILE COMPUTER A high speed random access magnetic file computer operated electronically and designed to meet the demand for an intermediate alphabetical and numerical data processing system named the Univac File Computer has been announced by Remington Rand Inc This computer will be available for sale or on a monthly rental basis Flexibility of operation and speed is attained by means of a magnetic buffer store and by a magnetic drum A multiplexing unit permits simultaneous handling of as many as 24 input channels simultaneously Thus several unrelated types of transactions may be processed simultaneously such as inven' 3ry control cost distribution payroll computations labor distribution and similar data Working from a variety of input-output equipment such as paper or magnetic tape or 80 or 90 column cards and programmed through conventional control panels or through a high speed magnetic drum or a combination of both the computer can accommodate in its random access drum storage from 180 000 to 1 800 000 alphabetical or numerical characters Also available is a high speed storage drum with a capacity of 1000 ten character words for data storage and additional capacity for high speed instruction storage with an average access time of 2-1 2 milliseconds input-output devices include card sensing and punching units with card speeds of 150 cards a minute 10 key entry keyboards with input-output printers conventional key punches tape handling equipment for punched-paper and magnetic metal tape and the high speed printer which prints 130 characters per line at the rate of 600 lines a minute The Computer was designed to handle operations not large enough to warrant installation of the large scale Univac system but it can be used to supplement the larger system through common use of interchangeable input-output equipment -7- THE SPEEDAC The Sperry electronic digital automatic computer SPEEDAC is a general purpose computer designed by the Sperry Gyros'-ope Company The desig 1 a of the computer was undertaken several years ago and its full scale operation as a computer facility for Sperry's Engineering Division will start sometime in the spring of 1955 In the design of the computer emphasis was placed on utmost simplicity of programming and operation It is intended that users of the computer will program their own problems The computer was completely designed at Sperry It occupies a space nine feet long seven feet high and one and one half feet deep Plug-in type construction is used throughout There are a total of 260 plug-in packages made up of eight standard designs Plug-in connections are used between all panels to permit easy servicing and replacement Some of the general characteristics of the computer are Arithmetic Unit type Word Length Clock Frequency Average # of Arithmetic Operations per second Storage Unit Type of Input Type of Output Number of Vacuum Tubes Number of Germanium Diodes Address System Number of Instructions Volume Power Requirements Serial Binary Fixed Radix point 18 bits plus sign 19 total 180 kcps 130 Magnetic Drum 4096 wordE capacity Punched paper tape Flexowriter 700 2 000 Single Address 23 95 Cubic Feet 6 kw Although the computer will operate in the straight binary system input and output can be in the decimal system including the use of alphabetical characters if desired Conversion from decimal to binary and from binary to decimal data will be accomplished with a permanently stored program The speed of the computer given above 130 operations per second represents the average speed during normal operation Except for a few special cases the computer will require the same length of time to execute any one of the orders Under special circumstances it will be possible to have the computer operate in special high-speed modes with a result that the computer will operate at either twice or four times the normal speed Plans are underway to devise a fairly extensive library of subroutines for the computer A special subroutine transfer order is incorporated in the order code to facilitate the use of subroutines by the programmer Considerable effort is being expended toward developing checking techniques checking and marginal checking equipment is being incorporated in the computer Both special COMPONENTS REMINGTON RAND ERA DIVISION - TWO NEW MAGNETIC DRUMS ANNOUNCED The line of magnetic storage drums offered to computer builders by Remington Rand's Engineering Research Associates Division has been augmented by two new drums of medium size The smaller new drum model ERA1119 has a rotor 4-3 8 inches in diameter by 8 inches long and has a basic storage capacity of over 100 000 bits of information on 100 tracks Twenty extra tracks are available for control patterns etc -8- Special features include all-steel construction broad range of speeds up to 15 000 rpm average access time as low as two milliseconds and one miniature ferrite magnetic readwrite head per track On special orders the drum can be provided with more than one head per track The larger of the two new drums model ERA 1120 is identical in all respects ex- cept that It is 15 inches long and stores over 200 000 bits of information on 200 tracks Forty extra track spaces are provided EUROPEAN NOTE-5 BIRKBECK COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Two electronic computing machines are now operating in this Laboratory One the H E C which has punched card input and output and a storage capacity of 512 words the other the A P E X C is at present running test acceptance programs I IlI The work of the Laboratory is now concentrating on the use of computing machines and current projects include mechanical translation and a program for the conversion of standard English text into contracted Braille for use by the blind AUTOMATIC CONTROL AND COMPUTING AT TH2 NATIONAL PHYSICAL LABORATORY TEDDINGTON The formation tif a new Division for Control Mechanisms and Electronics has been announced at The National Physical Laboratory Teddlngton England This new Division will cover the field of automatic control of industrial administrative and experimental operations and the development o f techniques and equipment for data processing and computation Mr R H Tizard of the Metrology Division of N P L has been appointed Head of the new Division NEW PUBLICATION avraeaces ie slo s w mliscndan nemnitrefrrt-9-etcred This office has received copies of a new publication MT Mechanical Translation The first three issues of Volume 1 issued in 1954 are being distributed without charge to those interested This first year of publication has been financed by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Future issues will be available on a subscription basis Number 1 of March 1954 contains a 41 item bibliography Number 2 contaihis News a report on the first conference on Mechanical Translation Research in progress and a continuation of the Bibliography The magazine is published at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and subscription correspondence should be addressed to W N Locke Room 14N-307 Editorial correspondence should be addressed to the above or to V H Yngve Room 20B-101B Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge 39 Massachusetts DCN NEWS ITEMS The Office of Naval Research welcomes contributions to the Digital Computer NEWSLETTER Material should be received by the editor not later than I March I June 1 September and 1 December to be included in the current issue Short technical articles on new machines on new developments in digital techn iques and components on new types of problems solved and generally news items which may be of potential interest to government users are desired Communications should be addressed to Editor Digital Computer Newsletter Code 427 Office of Naval Research Navy Department Washington 25 D C NOTICE The Digital Newsletter is published four times a year and is distributed free to interested Government Agencies and their contractors The Newsletter is also reprinted in its entirety as a supplement to the Proceedings of the Association of Computing Machinery These Proceedings may be obtained from the Association of Computing Machinery 2 East 63rd Street New York New York 1 I -10 - •'J7