[SIGCIS-Members] Handwritten "First Draft" in Dyson's book?

Tue Sep 1 22:12:10 PDT 2015

Dear SIGCIS members:
Thank you for so much information. David Grier was very kind enough to
forward my email to George Dyson, and I received his reply immediately!

Dyson says:

The copy of the EDVAC report that I used (and partly reproduced in Turing's
Cathedral) was (in 2003) in the open stacks of the math library at Fine
hall (the new Fine Hall) at Princeton University. I attach a JPEG of the
title page. Almost all of it is a typescript, except a few pages of
manuscript illustrations at the end. If for some reason Princeton
University is unable to provide you with a copy, I made a photocopy of the
entire document and could make a copy of that. Since the original is
priceless, I hope someone did not walk off with it. I felt very nervous
carrying it home from the library and just leaving it lying around the
apartment I was staying in (on Von Neumann Drive, coincidentally).

I will send emails to share this information with the archivists and
librarians in Princeton U. and in the IAS, who helped me. The JPEG attached
the email looks very similar to other typescripts of the First Draft.
Apparently this is not the hand-written version. But still, I am a little
interested in "a few pages of manuscript."
I visited the Library of Congress and APS Library in Philadelphia for
several times. I am very sure that there is no First Draft manuscript in
the von Neumann papers at the LoC, as Tom Haigh said. In the Goldstine
papers at APS, there is another version of typescript (I wrote an research
note on it =>
http://repository.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/handle/2433/153495 and
http://www4.plala.or.jp/maisugimoto/firstdraft.htm). I heard from Michael
Godfrey that he also got a copy of the APS draft last April, and I sent him
a list of differences between two versions of the typescript, which I made
for my translation work.

Mai

2015-09-02 4:38 GMT+09:00 Ceruzzi, Paul <CeruzziP at si.edu>:

> There is a “First Draft” in the rare book library of the Smithsonian. A
> number of years ago I got a call from the Bureau of Standards (now NIST),
> which was discarding a large personal library accumulated by one of its
> employees. I went up there to Gaithersburg, and it sort of “popped out”
> from the files. It is one of the original mimeographed copies—strictly
> speaking, not “mimeographed” but reproduced by some other chemical means.
> It was bound in a cardboard cover, signed by Sam Alexander, which I
> removed. Alexander was one of the builders of the SEAC computer. A classic
> story of how this collection was days away from the dumpster. The Draft is
> extremely fragile—it has to be handled very carefully as it was on some
> sort of chemically-treated paper that crumbles easily. But it is readable.
>
>
>
> I’ve often wondered exactly how many copies were made by Goldstine, but
> perhaps we’ll never know for sure.
>
>
>
> The rest of the NBS collection went to the Babbage Institute. You may be
> upset that I broke up the collection, but, hey, I saved it.
>
>
>
> Paul
>
>
>
> *From:* Members [mailto:members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org] *On Behalf Of *Thomas
> Haigh
> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 01, 2015 2:45 PM
> *To:* Chuck House
> *Cc:* members at lists.sigcis.org
> *Subject:* Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Handwritten "First Draft" in Dyson's book?
>
>
>
> Following up on Chuck's point, I believe that Dyson's work at IAS on the
> history of its computer project (led by von Neumann) prompted IAS to
> organize and make accessible its files on the project.
> https://library.ias.edu/finding-aids/ecpfa
>
>
>
> Dyson also received access from John von Neumann's daughter, Marina von
> Neumann Whitman, to some papers she had retained when the Library of
> Congress accessioned her father's papers. These include letters between von
> Neumann and his second wife, Klara. He was kind enough to share some of his
> copies of these with us, as they were at that point in Whitman's basement.
> However she has subsequently given them, along with her own papers, to
> Radcliffe College.
>
>
>
> I would, however, be stunned if either collection holds a manuscript for
> the "First Draft." I'm confident that it is not in Goldstine's collection
> at Hampshire college, which is quite small and has an excellent folder
> level finding aid. Goldstine's APS papers were, when I used them a few
> years ago, not fully processed and had only a draft finding aid. Something
> could be hiding there, but I didn't come across it and IIRC he gave to
> Hampshire first and provided them with the things he thought were most
> historically significant. I recall seeing a recent announcement from APS
> that the papers were finally processed. I'm also fairly sure that there is
> no First Draft manuscript in the von Neumann papers at the Library of
> Congress, as I looked through carefully for one without success.
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> On 1 September 2015 at 13:00, Chuck House <housec1839 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> George Dyson has given a number of talks about this book, the process by
> which it was written, and the sources.  A key set of sources were
> available from family and friends, previously unaccessed.  My strong hunch
> re your question is that "lots of the unreferenced information" is of this
> type.  My understanding (or maybe inferred belief) is that much of this
> material is in process of being given to (or maybe has been given to) the
> Princeton libraries, but it likely is not yet indexed, catelogued, or
> assentioned, which could account for your difficulty in locating some of
> it.
>
> I am pretty sure that Dyson's contact info is available via the Computer
> History Museum.  Dag?
>
> Best regards,
> Chuck House
>
> On 9/1/15 7:56 AM, "Members on behalf of Mai Sugimoto"
>
> <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org on behalf of nix.pura at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Dear SIGCIS members:
> >
> >I found George Dyson's book, Turing's Cathedral (2012), seems to show
> >the original hand-written version of the "First Draft" (probably?) in
> >a picture page, which is on 13 pages after p.136. Since the caption
> >says the picture is from Princeton University Libraries, I contacted
> >archivists of the Libraries to access the manuscript. But the
> >archivists answered they cannot find any material like the picture
> >within the collection or elsewhere in related collection. I also asked
> >to the IAS Library, but they cannot find anything, either. Then, as
> >the archivists suggested, I contacted the publisher to send a message
> >to Mr. Dyson. They told me just a forwarding address, so I sent a
> >regular mail to Mr. Dyson in last February to make sure of the
> >location of the manuscript.
> >
> >I have not received the reply yet. I am stranded. Does anyone know
> >contact information of Dyson, or have any idea about the picture on
> >the book or the original hand-written version of the draft? My
> >colleagues and I have been working of a Japanese translation of von
> >Neumann's original paper. Dyson's book is very interesting, but it
> >seems to have a lot of unreferenced information, so my collaborators
> >and I think that we should be careful to handle this book in the
> >bibliographical comments.
> >
> >Best,
> >
> >Mai Sugimoto
> >Associate Professor
> >Faculty of Sociology, Kansai University
> >3-3-35, Yamate-cho, Suita-shi
> >Osaka, Japan 564-8680
> >msgmt at kansai-u.ac.jp
> >_______________________________________________
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