IP: California IPers Computer History Lecture: "First Computer Built in California: The SWAC"

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

FYI: Below is an announcement for an upcoming Bay Area Computer History
Perspectives Lecture.

We are forwarding you their announcement because of your interest in
computer history.  However,
The Computer Museum History Center is not a sponsor of this talk.

If you do not wish to receive computer history lecture announcements from
us in the future, please send e-mail to: us in the future, please send e-mail to: chc () tcm org.


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                Bay Area Computer History Perspectives

            "First Computer Built in California: The SWAC"


                            Harry Huskey
                              Retired

                    5:30 PM, Tuesday, January 12
                            Berkeley Room
                      Sun Microsystems Bldg. 6
                           2750 Coast Ave.
                              Mt. View


The first computer built in California was built in Los Angeles, of all
places, not in Silicon Valley. It was the SWAC, the Standards Western
Automatic Computer, and it was built for the National Bureau of
Standards by Harry Huskey, our speaker this evening. Harry originally
thought of building a computer in California after a succession of
hard winters in Ohio and in England (where he worked for Alan Turing,
on the Automatic Computing Engine, the ACE, a development from the
Colossus, the early British computer used to break German codes in WWII).

When Harry arrived at UCLA, where the Bureau of Standards had an
Institute for Numerical Analysis, he found an empty room, and no
electronic equipment of any kind. Harry hired three engineers (one for
arithmetic, one for memory, and one for the control circuits) and set
to work. Available components were mainly vacuum tubes---germanium
diodes were delicate and hot and drifted, silicon junction diodes came
later, and usable transistors were even further off into the future.

When the SWAC was put into service in 1950, after two years of
development, it was the fastest computer in the world at that time. The
software was written by the people who built the machine, and included
various routines for numerical analysis but no operating system, that
was off into the future too. The SWAC was retired in 1957, after
transistors and operating systems and programmers had all appeared on
the scene.

Harry Huskey went on after the SWAC to build the Bendix G-15 computer,
often called the first personal computer, because although the size of
a large refrigerator it was the first computer designed for dedicated
use by a single individual. In 1960-62 Harry served as president of the
ACM, which awards the Turing prize annually for the leading achievements
in computer science, named after Alan Turing, Harry's former manager in
the U.K. Most recently, Harry served as Prof. of Computer Science at UC
Santa Cruz.

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Admission free as always, no charge, no advance registration.

  Directions to Sun Building 6

 Take San Antonio Road North exit from highway 101 in Mt. View, towards
 the Bay. Go one block past the traffic lights, and then:

   - turn right on Casey Ave. 
   - turn right again after a block onto Marine Way.
   - go one block down Marine Way, and then turn left on Coast Ave.
   - go down to the end of Coast Ave., and Building 6 is on your right.



--
Dag Spicer
Curator & 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: spicer () tcm org
WWW: http://www.computerhistory.org

To be placed on our regular lecture announcement list, please e-mail:
chc () tcm org.

Interested in making a donation?  Please visit:
http://www.computerhistory.org/donor.

<spicer () tcm org>  PGP: 15E31235 (E6ECDF74 349D1667 260759AD 7D04C178)

S/V T12: HAL