[SIGCIS-Members] "Stored Program" -- origins in IBM circa 1949?

Tue Apr 3 12:00:35 PDT 2012

Thanks to Peggy Kidwell (below) we have a confirmed sighting of "stored
program" in the wild in 1949. In fact two, in internal IBM documents. This
is very suggestive when taken in conjunction with something I noticed in
searching the ACM DL yesterday, which is that 6 of the 11 uses it located
through the end of 1960 were in papers written by IBM staff.

So, an attractive hypothesis is that the term was coined within IBM
Poughkeepsie in 1949 during early work on IBM's first experimental stored
program computer, the Test Assembly. As the 604 calculator being
cannibalized for its electronic arithmetic unit already had a plugboard
programming mechanism it makes sense that the team would want a clear name
for the separate capability they were building to execute a program stored
in Williams Tubes backed by a drum. 

Tom

From: Kidwell, Peggy [mailto:kidwellp at si.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2012 11:43 AM
To: 'David Alan Grier'; Thomas Haigh
Subject: RE: [SIGCIS-Members] "Stored program" -- anyone know origins of the
PHRASE

The term "stored program" was used in internal IBM documents discussing the
development of special circuits for the IBM 604 electronic calculating punch
by 1949.  See, for example, Nathaniel Rochester, "Plans for the Data
Processing Test Assembly," Document 05.14.24.  See also H. A. Mussell & C.
E. Frizzell, "Stored Program," December 27, 1949, which refers to
Rochester's paper.  This had internal code 05.015.37.

The reference is to programs stored on the drum of the machine or
electrostatically, as opposed to on a plugboard.  

Peggy

From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of David Alan Grier
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 5:25 PM
To: Thomas Haigh
Cc: members at sigcis.org
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] "Stored program" -- anyone know origins of the
PHRASE

Tom

            Two bounds for your search.  "Stored Program" is not in the 1950
IRE Standard on Computer Terms:

<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnu
mber=1701474&contentType=Journals+%26+Magazines&ranges%3D1951_1956_p_Publica
tion_Year%26matchBoolean%3Dtrue%26searchField%3DSearch_All%26queryText%3D%28
p_Title%3Acomputer+terms%29> Standards on Electronic Computers: Definitions
ofTerms, 1950

<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=10
933> Proceedings of the IRE 
Volume: 39 ,
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=3584
4>  Issue: 3 
Digital Object Identifier:
<http://dx.doi.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/10.1109/JRPROC.1951.231840>
10.1109/JRPROC.1951.231840 
Publication Year: 1951 , Page(s): 271 - 277

But it is used in the 1953 IRE article on programming.  

<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnu
mber=4051188&contentType=Journals+%26+Magazines&sortType%3Dasc_p_Publication
_Year%26ranges%3D1953_1958_p_Publication_Year%26matchBoolean%3Dtrue%26search
Field%3DSearch_All%26queryText%3D%28.QT.stored+program.QT.%29> Fundamentals
of Digital Computer Programming

Thomas, W.H.

<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=10
933> Proceedings of the IRE 
Volume: 41 ,
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=4051
180>  Issue: 10 
Digital Object Identifier:
<http://dx.doi.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/10.1109/JRPROC.1953.274275>
10.1109/JRPROC.1953.274275 
Publication Year: 1953 , Page(s): 1245 - 1249

 I SHOULD NOTE THAT IT IS NOT USED IN THE COMPANION 1953 article on the IBM
701.

David

--------------------------------

David Alan Grier

Fellow, IEEE

President Elect, IEEE Computer Society 

Assoc. Prof., International Science & Technology Policy

Center for International Science and Technology Policy 

grier at gwu.edu

On Apr 2, 2012, at 4:34 PM, Thomas Haigh wrote:

Hello everyone,

I have a query related to a project I am working on concerning the
conversion of ENIAC to stored program control in 1948, initially to run the
first computerized Monte Carlo calculations. All this took place prior to
the first operation of the Manchester Baby. That makes the question of what
one means by "stored program" a very interesting one.

This question was much discussed in the early days of the history of
computing (1970s, early 1980s). I am starting to dig back into primary
sources for early use of the phrases "stored program" and "stored program
concept" to get a better idea of how these terms were used in the
1940s/early 1950s and what people thought they meant at the time. 

To clarify, almost everyone who has written about this cites the 1945 "First
Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" as the initial dissemination of the stored
program concept although there has been considerable debate as to the source
of the ideas contained therein. However that document does not contain the
phase "stored program." Or indeed use the word "program" in the body of the
text. Or, remarkably, "EDVAC." "Stored" shows up a few times, though less
frequently than "remembered." So, ignoring for the moment the relationship
of the report to later definitions of the concept, we can agree that it was
not the source of the phrase. The most obvious summary of the idea using the
report's own terminology would be "remembered instruction device" rather
than "stored program computer." 

I had thought about the 1946 Moore School lectures as a possible vector for
the phase "stored program" as well as the concept. The phrase shows up many
times in the Moore School lectures book but so far I have spotted it only in
the 1980s editorial material rather than in the original lecture summaries. 

By 1954 "stored program computer" is showing up without explanation or
citation required in the description of the IBM 650 published in the
inaugural issue of Journal of the ACM. It is not particularly common in the
ACM DL material for the rest of the decade ("automatic computer" and
"digital computer" are more prevalent) but continues to pop up occasionally.
The best the OED can do is 1957, which is even later.

So, any thoughts on who came up with this phrase and when? I'm planning to
dig deeper in search of early usage, for example into the 1950 "High-Speed
Computing Devices" ERA book and some of the other CBI reprints from the
1940s, but it occurred to me that someone on the list might already know the
answer to the question.

Tom

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