Friday, May 30, 2008

WONDER OF COUMPUTER


WONDER OF COUMPUTER


Aiken's computer, originally named the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator and later the Harvard Mark I, ran at the pace of three calculations per second, a turtle compared to today's simplest digital calculators.
In 1944 the speed was considered unbelievably fast. According to a New York Times article, "At the dictation of a mathematician, it will solve in a matter of hours equations never before solved because of their intricacy and the enormous time and personnel which would be required to work them out on ordinary office calculators."
The first two problems the computer tackled were from physics and astronomy: calculating integrals and producing numbers to be used to design a telephoto lens.
Later the computer worked on problems associated with magnetic fields, radar, and a top secret equation from scientists at Los Alamos Laboratories, N.M., concerning the implosion of the atomic bomb.
While the machine was running, the ticking sound of thousands of registers turning filled the Physics Department basement. "It sounded like a clickety-clackety rhythm band," said Anthony Oettinger '51, PhD '54, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics, who was one of Aiken's graduate students.
The giant machine ran 24 hours a day. Whenever it stopped, a bell would ring, alerting one of the people tending it to press a button or turn a knob to prompt the computer to move on to the next step. Often Aiken would pop out of his nearby office, which was filled with awards, to see what was going on.
On Aug. 14, 1944, the University formally dedicated the computer and it continued to run for 14 more years. Aiken was involved in the construction of three more computers, as well as establishing at Harvard the world's first full-scale degree program in what we now call computer science.
Now, more than 50 years later, part of the Mark I sits in the lobby of the Science Center, another section is in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, and the last part is in IBM's historical collection.

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