[SIGCIS-Members] DYSEAC and Fort Monmouth question

[Evan Koblentz]

Hi all,

In the past few years I have become very familiar with DYSEAC, which was 
a "portable" computer (two 40-foot trailers!) made by the U.S. National 
Bureau of Standards starting in 1953.  It was made in D.C. and 
transported for testing to the White Sands (New Mexico) Signal Agency.  
Alas, it never got beyond the testing stage, and so the Army didn't have 
a working portable computer until MOBIDIC three years later.

Tonight I was thumbing through the third edition (1963) of Ned Chapin's 
"An Introduction to Automatic Computers".  Page 190 contains a chart of 
computer installations, and it cites DYSEAC as being located at Fort 
Monmouth (New Jersey).  I believe that's a mistake, and it probably 
happened because the White Sands Signal Agency reported to the Signal 
Corps Electronics Laboratory headquarters, which was at Fort Monmouth.

Now I'm wondering: does anyone have information that DYSEAC itself was 
somehow affiliated with or ever located at, Fort Monmouth?

Related question: Earlier today, I met an 88-year-old engineer named 
Oliver Reynolds who said that after World War II, he built a tube 
computer while stationed at Camp Evans (the Fort Monmouth outpost that's 
now my computer museum).  He didn't recall details but he promised to 
dig out his notes and be in touch next week.  This was news to me -- I 
never heard of a tube computer being built here -- there isn't any 
reference in Chapin's chart nor from any other source I have seen.  The 
only machine Chapin lists at Monmouth (other than DYSEAC, which I 
believe is a mistake) is Monrobot 1 from 1953, and that's not a 
possibility for Mr. Reynolds because it was obviously done by the Monroe 
Calculator Co.

I am out of ideas, at least until next Wednesday when I meet with Mr. 
Reynolds again for an interview.  He says he has a color negative of him 
next to the computer.  We shall see .....

Camp Evans * did * have a role in ENIAC (as I've previously explained on 
this list); in 1947 was a customer of the Moore School's differential 
analyzer; and in 1956 moved on to MOBIDIC.  So it is certainly possible 
that this man is correct.  It's also possible the computer was only a 
prototype or that it was classified.  Both circumstances would explain 
its non-existence in literature.

I will also check in the Monmouth archives.