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IP: Calif. LECTURE: "Building Computers in 1953: The Johnniac"
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 19:18:05 -0400
The Computer Museum History Center presents: "Building Computers in 1953: The Johnniac" The Speakers: Willis Ware, JOHNNIAC Designer; Bill Gunning, JOHNNIAC Project Engineer; Mort Bernstein, JOHNNIAC Software Developer; Paul Armer, RAND Department Head. 5:30 PM, Tuesday, Sept. 15 The Computer Museum History Center Building 126 Moffett Field Mountain View, CA NOTE: YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED TO THIS TALK WITHOUT ADVANCE CONFIRMATION (BY SEPT 14) BECAUSE OF MOFFETT FIELD SECURITY CHANGES. A Computer Museum membership card will not be enough, you still have to confirm in advance. See confirmation procedure below, at conclusion of this announcement. The JOHNNIAC was one of an illustrious group of computers built in the early 1950's, all inspired by the IAS computer designed by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Some of these other machines were the MANIAC (Los Alamos) and the ILLIAC (Univ. of Illinois), as well as WEIZAC, AVIDAC, and ORDVAC. JOHNNIAC was built at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, and named after John von Neumann himself. JOHNNIAC ran for the first time in March, 1954. It pioneered the development of time shared operating systems with JOSS (the JOHNNIAC Open Shop System). JOSS could support several dozen users with drum swapping. JOHNNIAC was also one of the first users of magnetic core memory, which dominated computer memories for the next 25 years. Among other tasks, JOHNNIAC was also used to develop digitizing tablets for computer input. This talk will be given in front of The JOHNNIAC itself since this remarkable machine is now part of the permanent collection of The Computer Museum History Center--home to the world's largest collection of historical computer hardware. Our speakers were all working on JOHNNIAC over 40 years ago. Willis Ware led the development of JOHNNIAC and received the IEEE Pioneer Award in 1994 for this work. Bill Gunning was the computer engineer who built JOHNNIAC; Paul Armer managed the Numerical Analysis Dept. at Rand where JOHNNIAC was built, and later directed the Computation Center at Stanford University. Paul hired Mort Bernstein to work on software for JOHNNIAC at RAND, and Mort is now working on a JOHNNIAC simulator, due to be completed before the year 2000. For more information, be sure to visit the JOHHNIAC lecture announcement web site: http://www.computerhistory.org/johnniac . Hope to see you there! D.S. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Directions
From Highway 101 in Mountain View, take the Moffett Field exit (ignore any
exits for Moffett Blvd.). At the Moffett Field main gate, go to the Visitor Badging office on the right side of the gate. Confirmation Procedure Remember you must confirm at least one full day in advance before the talk. Confirm by calling Cynthia Gapaud at 650.604.2579, or by emailing chc () tcm org, with your name, phone no., and country of citizenship: - if you are a US citizen, please state so, and bring a driver's license for photo id. - if you are not a US citizen, but have a green card, state your country of citizenship, and bring the green card. - and if you are not a US citizen, and do not have a green card, please email chc () tcm org with your name, country of origin, and citizenship, to get confirmation. If you are confirmed, you will need to bring your passport. Among other countries, citizens (without a green card) of China, India, Israel, South Africa and Taiwan require special processing for admittance to Moffett Field, and will not be able to attend this talk. -- Dag Spicer Manager of Historical Collections The Computer Museum History Center NASA Ames Research Center - Moffett Field Mountain View, CA 94035 Offices: Building T12-A Exhibit Area: Building 126 Tel: +1 650 604 2578 Fax: +1 650 604 2594 E-m: dagspicer () netcare com WWW: http://www.tcm.org/html/history/index.html Our next Computer History Lecture: "The Johnniac," September 15, 1998. Visit the Johnniac Lecture Announcement site: http://www.computerhistory.org/johnniac . To be placed on our regular lecture announcement list, please e-mail: chc () tcm org. <spicer () tcm org> PGP: 15E31235 (E6ECDF74 349D1667 260759AD 7D04C178) SV/T12: ENIAC
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- IP: Calif. LECTURE: "Building Computers in 1953: The Johnniac" Dave Farber (Sep 08)