cudat@warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks) (08/04/88)
The following is taken from a letter to "Computer Talk":-
... The Colossus, built at Dollis Hill in London by T. H. Flowers
and installed at Bletchley Park in 1943, beats the Eniac by three years.
Neither machine was stored-program and neither machine was general-purpose.
Colossus was for code-breaking, Eniac for ballistics ...
When someone says "X was the first computer", I never know whether it was
the first electronic computer, the first stored-program computer, the
first general-purpose computer or what, so perhaps the question is
meaningless.
However, since the Colossus was a British Government secret for thirty
years, many of the written histories of computing do not include it.
I mention it here to try to set the record straight (some time ago there
was a discussion about ENIAC).
--
J. M. Hicks (a.k.a. Hilary),
Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry, England. CV4 7AL
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It helps if you spell "cudat" in lower case.alanj@klepto.gwd.tek.com (Alan Jeddeloh) (08/09/88)
In article <658@sol.warwick.ac.uk> cudat@warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks) writes: >The following is taken from a letter to "Computer Talk":- > > ... The Colossus, built at Dollis Hill in London by T. H. Flowers > and installed at Bletchley Park in 1943, beats the Eniac by three years. > > Neither machine was stored-program and neither machine was general-purpose. > Colossus was for code-breaking, Eniac for ballistics ... > >When someone says "X was the first computer", I never know whether it was >the first electronic computer, the first stored-program computer, the >first general-purpose computer or what, so perhaps the question is >meaningless. > >However, since the Colossus was a British Government secret for thirty >years, many of the written histories of computing do not include it. >I mention it here to try to set the record straight (some time ago there >was a discussion about ENIAC). >-- _Annals of the History of Computing_ had a special 3-article feature on Colossus in the the July '83 (Vol 5 #3) issue. Colossus was a special purpose machine used to break German codes during the second wold war. It used electronic circuits the do repetitive fixed calculations. It was not programmable per se or even sequenced controlled. Incidentally, _Annals ..._ is an excellent magazine for anyone interested in the history of computers and computing. It is published quarterly by AFIPS (American Federation of Information Processing Societies) through Springer-Verlag. North American rates are $32.00/year, outside NA it is DM 171 (from the order blank in the current cover). The most recent issue has an article on the Univac "Short Code", an early interpreter, by William Schmitt, who wrote the first version. The author had the following comments on ENIAC: "I had spent part of the previous summer of 1948 as an ENIAC operator and was familiar with ENIAC programming. The ENIAC was a set of modules which could be connected differently for every problem. Originally it was programmed by plugging units together. The accumulators which held the data and did the arithmetic were plugged into one or more of a number of data transfer busses. Several operations could occur at the same time. Operations were initiated by pulses supplied by program control circuits. Setting up and debugging was very time consuming because of the maze of cable and because of the independent parallel computations possible. "When the first program for Los Alamos was run on the ENIAC it was too large to fit and a fix using the function tables units were (sic) introduced. These units stored six decimal digit constants in rotary switches. They generated program pulses when operating and these pulses were adapted to control some data transfers. It is not clear to whom this idea should be credited, but it allowed the program to be run successfully. This program was the responsibility of John von Neumann and was one of the reasons for his involvement with the ENIAC. Later after delivery to the Ballistic Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1948, a method of programming was introduced which used the three ENIAC function table units. This was done at the insistance (sic) of von Neumann was and extension of the method used in the fix and required some additional hardware. "Each six digit constant was interpreted as a sort of two address instruction which specified two accumulators and an operation. The method eliminated the possibility of parallel programming because only one accumulator pair could be specified at a time so the others sat idle. The reduction in program switch-over time, sometimes more than a week, more than made up for the loss in performance. "Since this programming method bears on the subject of the stored program, a few more words are in order. There were many other participants other than von Neumann. The first mention of stored programming appeared in an a preliminary report on the EDVAC more than a year previous to von Neumann's arriving on the scene. Other participants included John Mauchly, Kay Mauchly, Richard Clippinger, Arthur Gehring Jr., and Betty Jean Bartik." _Annals of the History of Computing_, Volume 10, number 1, 1988, p8. -Alan Jeddeloh (503) 685-2991 Tektronix GWD; D/S 61-201; P. O. Box 1000; Wilsonville, OR 97070 {decvax|ucbvax}!tektronix!orca!alanj -or- alanj@orca.tek.com ASTROLOGY --- Just say No!