[Another contribution to this discussion] -----Original Message----- From: Roger Neil Barton [mailto:neil.barton@uclmail.net] Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 9:47 AM To: Ceruzzi, Paul; 'Brian Randell'; thaigh@computer.org Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Were any early computers completed on schedule? Tom, Just to echo Paul's comment. I joined ICL mainframe manufacturing division in West Gorton, Manchester as Financial Controller (FC) in the mid 70s. As you know ICL was a combination of Ferranti, ICT, and English Electric. West Gorton and its satellite Dukinfield were in all but name Ferranti, responsible for design and manufacture with a continuing Ferranti corporate culture. All the FCs throughout manufacturing were replaced at the same time and we all recruited from the automobile industry which operated with annual model changes. More particularly the auto industry operated with engineering changes that were documented right through the company and they wanted people used to these procedures. Finance was a very powerful function but within my team we had graduate engineers, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians and so were not really bean counters. What I found when I joined was that every machine on the shop floor was different with design engineers feeling free to come downstairs and give instructions to the shop floor personnel even retrospectively amend the design spec, but not because the customer had wanted something different. As far as the design engineers were concerned this gave the customer the benefit of their latest thinking. It had never occurred to them that these changes had cost (and therefore profit) implications. As I knew that was why I and my colleagues had been recruited I implemented a system of formal engineering changes that could be implemented at regular intervals. The 2900 range was the first range where the product could be said to be 'finished' before it began production. kind regards neil PS I don't think my submissions are accepted by sigcis so perhaps you would be kind enough to post it for me. Dr Roger Neil Barton -----Original Message----- From: Ceruzzi, Paul Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 2:01 PM To: 'Brian Randell' ; thaigh@computer.org Cc: <members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Were any early computers completed on schedule? 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@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of Brian Randell Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 6:06 AM To: thaigh@computer.org Cc: <members@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/publicat ions/books/papers/133.pdf&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=iEx95BOSDrL1Sb ShZgBAew%3D%3D%0A&m=tfHMe3JuD9T32JpBQY0J1zbPYDidGqKq6g8doPfgbqs%3D%0A&s=50ad 56df86049bc505ab2fa438adf88a8bbc98d2fa7a830b33f8a8d0f4d832a3] 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@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 _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://sigcis.org/pipermail /members/&k=diZKtJPqj4jWksRIF4bjkw%3D%3D%0A&r=iEx95BOSDrL1SbShZgBAew%3 D%3D%0A&m=tfHMe3JuD9T32JpBQY0J1zbPYDidGqKq6g8doPfgbqs%3D%0A&s=f690d2ac f540987161177494b600f31f714a1e9c56325a0d9a5bff580c659217 and you can change your subscription options athttp://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members

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