[SIGCIS-Members] Were any early computers completed on schedule?

Tue Jan 14 08:09:42 PST 2014

Paul makes the correct point about when machines were "finished."  Once
companies start development projects to create new machines then we see
deadlines set for getting the initial versions built, other deadlines for
getting them tested and approved for general production, for public
announcement of availability, and then targets set for "first customer
shipments."  So a typical commercial computer and or peripheral of any size
after about 1955 may have 4+ general deadlines its developers/manufacturing
divisions might have to meet.  Since we are talking about thousands of
machines over the course of many years, it is a tough question to answer
how many made it.  By definition, as Paul implies, early systems were
one-of-a-kind exploratory experiment.

 He is also right about the Colossus, which despite heroic efforts by
British historians to promote, its position in the history of computing is
still a project underway.  I think we are finally realizing how important
it was, not just for its use in the war, but as an important medium for
creating and diffusing knowledge about computing across both British
computer builders and quickly too to American and other European computer
builders.  On either point, Colossus really was magnificent.  Had its
existence not been kept quiet for so long, we would have come to this
recognition much earlier at the expense of ENIAC and other early machines.
 So the Rodney Dangerfield comment is correct--as that American comedian
used to say at the start of each performance, "I get no respect."

Cheers,

Jim Cortada

On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Brian Randell <
brian.randell at newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi Paul:
>
> Nice to hear from you - though your comment about "Rodney Dangerfield"
> sent me to Wikipedia for clarification :-)
>
> Incidentally, next month, on Feb 5, there will be a celebration at The
> National Museum of Computing, at Bletchley Park, of the 70th anniversary of
> Colossus attacking its first encrypted message. In the presence of Colossus
> and Tunny veterans, the Colossus Rebuild that was constructed by a team led
> by the late Tony Sale <
> http://www.tnmoc.org/special-projects/colossus-rebuild/rebuilding-colossus>
> will be used in a re-enactment of the code-breaking process "from intercept
> to decrypt".
>
> Cheers
>
> Brian
>
> On 14 Jan 2014, at 14:01, "Ceruzzi, Paul" <CeruzziP at si.edu>
>  wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Brian. In America we would say that the Colossus is the Rodney
> Dangerfield of computers -- it does not get the respect it deserves.
> >
> > One issue that I have is that for most early computers (and complex
> technology in general), there was no such thing as being "finished" on a
> certain date.  Perhaps with the exception of the Colossus, they all eased
> themselves into operation. So it is not clear when to assign a date of
> completion, as much as people want to do that.
> >
> > Paul E. Ceruzzi
> > Chair, Division of Space History
> > National Air & Space Museum
> > MRC 311; PO Box 37012
> > Washington, DC 20013-7012
> > 202-633-2414
> > <http://www.nasm.si.edu/staffDetail.cfm?staffID=24>
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: members-bounces at sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces at sigcis.org] On
> Behalf Of Brian Randell
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 6:06 AM
> > To: thaigh at computer.org
> > Cc: <members at sigcis.org>
> > Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Were any early computers completed on
> schedule?
> >
> > Hi Tom:
> >
> > The first Colossus was built on the initiative of Tommy Flowers at the
> Post Office Research Station, and was completed in eleven months, becoming
> operational there in December 1943, before being moved to  Bletchley Park
> where it was placed into service in early 1944. Soon after this he and his
> team were "asked" to make a dozen further machines, which were wanted by
> June 1944! This was plainly impossible, but Flowers undertook to try to get
> the first production, or Mark 2, Colossus ready by that date, and further
> ones ready at about one month intervals. (The Mark 2 Colossus machines
> involved a major redesign and through the use of parallelism were five
> times faster than the initial machine.)
> >
> > To quote my paper, at the 1976 Los Alamos conference on the History of
> Computing on Colossus: "By 31 May [the first Mark 2 Colossus] was nearly
> complete. Flowers, Broadhurst, Chandler, Coombs and Saville were all at
> Bletchley Park, but they could not get the machine to work. Eventually, in
> the early hours of 1 June, the others went home to get some sleep, leaving
> Chandler to work on, since the trouble was in the part he had redesigned.
> In his words, "The whole system was in a state of violent parasitic
> oscillation at a frequency outside the range of our oscilloscopes [and
> then] by way of diversion, at about 3.00 a.m. a nearby radiator started
> leaking, sending a pool of warm water towards the equipment!". He
> eventually found a means of curing the problem and at nearly 4.00 a.m. left
> Norman Thurlow, one of the maintenance engineers, to finish the required
> rewiring. The others others arrived back at 8.30 a.m. to find that the
> machine was working. The deadline had been beaten -
>   and it was just five days to D-day, 6 June 1944!" [
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/books/papers/133.pdf&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=iEx95BOSDrL1SbShZgBAew%3D%3D%0A&m=tfHMe3JuD9T32JpBQY0J1zbPYDidGqKq6g8doPfgbqs%3D%0A&s=50ad56df86049bc505ab2fa438adf88a8bbc98d2fa7a830b33f8a8d0f4d832a3
> ]
> >
> > By the end of the war, at least ten Colossi were operational at
> Bletchley Park.
> >
> > So the answer to your question about Colossus is an emphatic "yes".
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Brian
> >
> >
> > On 13 Jan 2014, at 17:17, Thomas Haigh <thaigh at computer.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> For my ongoing project on ENIAC I've written a sentence SEAC, another
> early computer, that includes the words "..although finished well behind
> schedule, like all early computers.".
> >>
> >> It's been suggested to me that several Colossus computers were in fact
> finished on schedule. Does anyone know if this is true?
> >>
> >> Also, are there any other examples of early digital computers of the
> 1940s or earlier reaching reliable operation more or less on the schedule
> promised to the people funding them? Delays to ENIAC, EDVAC, the IAS
> computer, ACE, Univac, the Manchester Mark 1, the  Harvard Mark 1, and of
> course Babbage's Difference Engine are well documented.
> >>
> >> I can always change "all" to "most" but this is now making me curious.
> >>
> >> Best wishes,
> >>
> >> Tom
> >> _______________________________________________
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> > School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
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-- 
James W. Cortada
Senior Research Fellow
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
jcortada at umn.edu
608-274-6382
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