IP: Calif. LECTURE: "Building Computers in 1953: The Johnniac"

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

                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