[SIGCIS-Members] EDSAC touted as "First Practical General Purpose Computer" -- again

Mon Dec 1 09:26:57 PST 2014

Hello SIGCIS members,

You may remember some discussion on this list earlier this year following a
previous press release from the National Museum of Computing calling EDSAC
"the first practical general purpose computer." The museum's new press
release, as linked to by Brian
<http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/edsac-display-opens-and-commissioni
ng-begins> , repeats that characterization, and goes one better: "It was the
first practical general purpose computer and marked the beginning of
computer programming as a distinct profession." The release also quotes
Doron Swade as saying that "It could be said that EDSAC invented the user as
a distinct class of practitioner."

A little exaggeration is understandable at a gala celebration, but none of
those claims for "firsts," "beginnings" and "invention" seem to me to hold
up to historical scrutiny. EDSAC is traditionally viewed as the first
"practical stored program computer" but was preceded as both "practical" and
"general purpose" by digital computers such as ENIAC, SSEC, various Bell
Labs and IBM relay calculators, the Harvard Mark 1, and several Zuse
machines. In fact in response to the earlier discussion on this list TMOC
removed the "first practical general purpose computer" claim. David Hartley
from the EDSAC Replica Project contacted me to explain that the claim in no
way represented the position of the museum, but was the mistake of an
overenthusiastic PR person and had been corrected. So it's rather surprising
to see the same phrase so prominently repeated in a new press release. (I'm
pasting below my previous message on this topic). 

As we discussed during one of the SIGCIS sessions at SHOT, the term "general
purpose," unlike "stored program," was actually used during the 1940s and
featured prominently in the first wave of articles introducing ENIAC to the
world. For example the abstract of a February 1948 Electrical Engineering
paper by ENIAC team members Brainerd and Sharpless began "The ENIAC is the
only electronic large-scale general-purpose digital computing device now in
operation."

As for the idea that EDSAC was the first computer to separate programing as
a distinct role, both the Harvard Mark 1 and ENIAC provide well-documented
counterexamples. Harvard separated operations and programming labor by about
1945, according to Beyer, Kurt W. Grace Hopper and the Invention of the
Information Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. ENIAC substantially
combined the two roles in its original configuration, which is why the
operators hired in mid-1945 are now remembered as pioneering programmers.
However from about March 1947 one of those operators, Jean Bartik, headed a
team of contract programmers based at the Moore School in Philadelphia after
ENIAC and its operations team had left for Aberdeen, MD the previous year.
This is very probably the first time a contract was given entirely for
programming work and arguably marks beginning of programming work as a
full-time occupation entirely distinct from building a computer, operating a
computer, or overseeing its operation. Certainly it was an earlier and more
complete separation of programming from other work than anything seen on
EDSAC in 1949.

Did EDSAC invent the user? In 1945-48, before EDSAC was completed, the
Harvard Mark 1, IBM SSEC, and ENIAC all ran jobs for outside organizations
and for users from Penn and the Ballistic Research Laboratory not affiliated
with the ENIAC team. Los Alamos, for example, ran major jobs on all three
machines and accounted for a significant fraction of all time consumed on
ENIAC and SSEC during this period. ENIAC also ran jobs for Argonne, United
Aircraft, and British mathematical physicist Douglas Hartree during the
period. So it's not clear to me what EDSAC accomplished which was different
from the relationship to ENIAC of an outside user organization with no
programming staff or ENIAC operators, such as United Aircraft.

Of course EDSAC played an important part in the development of programming
and computer usage, but to me this offers another lesson in the danger of
making claims to historical significance based on "firsts" or "inventions".
Here is what I wrote previously, with reference to my ongoing work on this
era with Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope (www.EniacInAction.com):

Hmm, the discovery of those diagrams is good news for EDSAC rebuilders but I

was surprised to see that the press release twice calls EDSAC "the first

practical general purpose computer." One occurrence is in the boilerplate

passage on EDSAC at the bottom of the release, which suggests that this is

TNMOC's official position. That seems to violate the de facto truce

concluded between early computer history enthusiasts in the early 1980s when

they settled on the appropriate series of adjectives to go between "first"

and "computer." As Mike Williams once wrote, "there is more than enough

glory in the creation of the modern computer to satisfy all of the early

pioneers, most of whom are no longer in a position to care anyway." (That's

the introduction to the "The First Computers: History and Architecture"

collection from 2000). ENIAC got the metaphorical trophy for "first general

purpose electronic digital computer" in its original 1945 configuration

whereas EDSAC went home with the award for "first practical stored program

computer."

..

Williams also noted that, "If you add enough adjectives to a description you

can always claim your own favorite. For example ENIAC is often claimed to be

the 'first electronic, general purpose, large scale, digital computer' and

you certainly have to add all those adjectives before you have a correct

statement." In our own work we argue that the history is somewhat more

complicated than can be captured by those "first [adjective] [adjective]

[adjective] computer" phrases, but that doesn't mean that "general purpose"

and "stored program" can be conflated. People who care about "firsts" also

need to take care with those adjectives.

Best wishes,

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
Behalf Of Brian Randell
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2014 4:50 AM
To: Sigcis
Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] EDSAC display opens & commissioning begins

Hi:

> EDSAC display opens & commissioning begins

> 

> Entrepreneur Hermann Hauser has officially opened the EDSAC display at The
National Museum of Computing and, as key parts of the reconstruction of one
the most influential computers ever built were commissioned, the sights,
sounds, heat and sheer size of computing in the late 1940s were brought to
life. Already the machine is proving to be a very popular exhibit and is a
marvel and an inspiration to visiting educational groups.

> 

> EDSAC, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, was originally
built in the University of Cambridge immediately after World War II by a
team led by Sir Maurice Wilkes. It was the first practical general purpose
computer and marked the beginning of computer programming as a distinct
profession. EDSAC was so successful that it was used in Nobel prize-winning
scientific research and its design was later developed to create LEO, the
world's first business computer.

> 

> After two years of research and re-engineering by a team of about 20
volunteers, the EDSAC reconstruction is now becoming a reality that is
already fascinating visitors to the Museum.

> 

> At the official opening of the exhibit, several key elements of EDSAC were
demonstrated. Bill Purvis showed how a program would be input before the
advent of keyboards and how the result would be output before screens became
commonplace. Peter Linnington revealed how, at the start of the computer
age, delay lines were used as stores. As the climax, Chris Burton switched
on the EDSAC clock, the beating heart of the machine.

> 

> The three-year project is on schedule for completion late next year and
computer historian Martin Campbell-Kelly gave a preview of what is in store
by outlining the importance of EDSAC in marking the beginnings of computer
programming. He revealed plans for young people to create and run their own
programs on one of the world's most influential early computers.

<snip>

Full story at:
<http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/edsac-display-opens-and-commissioni
ng-begins>
http://www.tnmoc.org/news/news-releases/edsac-display-opens-and-commissionin
g-begins

Cheers

Brian Randell

School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1
7RU

EMAIL =  <mailto:Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk> Brian.Randell at ncl.ac.uk   PHONE =
+44 191 208 7923

URL =  <http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell>
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/staff/profile/brian.randell

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