Computers & Business Machines

• 

  The Pump Unit, 1967

  Description

  The first video games were played on this machine.

  With the use of changing screen color and moving dots, TV Game Unit #2 allowed two players to compete against each other in seven different games. These games included a variety of chase games, a target-shooting game, and games that required the wooden handle attached to the unit’s lower right hand corner (see photograph). The handle was moved up and down, like a pump, in the course of certain games. In honor of this unusual game play, TV Game Unit #2 was rechristened “The Pump Unit.”

  Baer and his team demonstrated the "Pump Unit" to Sanders senior management on June 15, 1967. The presentation was successful and now the team had a new goal: to turn this technology into a commercially viable product. After a few years and numerous test and advancements, Baer and his team delivered the “Brown Box,”[hyperlink] a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system. It would be licensed to Magnavox, who released the system as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972.

  Like all the Ralph Baer prototypes, the "Pump Unit" was later used as evidence in many patent infringement cases. It still bears many of the court exhibit labels left over from these trials, as can be seen from the photograph.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  Date made

  1967

  patent holder

  Baer, Ralph H.

  inventor

  Baer, Ralph H.

  ID Number

  2006.0102.03

  accession number

  2006.0102

  catalog number

  2006.0102.03

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  SCM Marchant Cogito 240 Electronic Calculator

  Description

  This ten-key, non-printing electronic desktop calculator performs the four arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The factors and results are stored in three registers, two of twelve-digit capacity and the third, of twenty-four digits. The content of these registers appears in three rows on a cathode ray tube display. The top row (K) shows the entry from the keyboard, the second row (Q) the second factor or the quotient, and the third row (P) the total, product, or dividend.

  In front of the display is the keyboard, with an array of digit keys at the center, keys for arithmetic functions and memory on the right, and on the left reset, register transfer, register entry, recall, and exchange keys.

  A mark on the left front of the machine reads: SCM MARCHANT. A mark behind the keyboard and below the screen reads: COGITO 240.

  In the summer of 1965, the SCM Marchant Division of SCM Corporation announced that it would begin to sell the company’s first electronic calculators that fall. These were the Cogito 240 and a similar machine, the Cogito 240SR, which also had the ability to take square roots. The 240 was to sell for $2,195, and the 240SR for $2,395. The machines were manufactured at a company plant in Oakland, California.

  According to Bensene, the machine was designed by computer pioneer Stanley Frankel, who had worked on the Manhattan Project, run programs on the ENIAC computer, headed the Computation Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, and contributed to the design of minicomputers such as the LGP-30 and the Packard-Bell PB-250. Frankel worked on the design at Computron Corporation, a subsidiary of the California firm of Electrosolids. Not long after the British firm of Sumlock Comptometer released a desktop electronic calculator in 1961 (see the Anita Mark VIII), SCM acquired Computron Corporation, and Frankel and his team moved there to develop the Cogito 240.

  The calculator was quickly replaced by other electronic calculators in the SCM line. SCM dropped out of the calculator business entirely in 1972.

  References:

  R. Bensene, “SCM Marchant Cogito 240SR Electronic Desktop Computer,” at the website The Old Calculator Museum, accessed March 28, 2013.

  SCM Marchant, Cogito 240-240SR Service Manual & Parts List, Oakland, Calif.: SCM Corporation, 1965. This is 1979.3084.72.

  W. D. Smith, “Electronic Calculators Gaining,” New York Times, August 7, 1965, p. 25.

  “Presenting a new, highly advanced electronic calculator the Cogito 240,” Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1965, p. B10. Similar advertisements ran in the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and New York Times.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1966

  maker

  SCM Corporation

  ID Number

  CI.335373

  accession number

  318944

  catalog number

  335373

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Photograph, Douglas Engelbart with Early Computer Mouse

  Description

  This black and white photograph shows Douglas Engelbart sitting in a chair in an SRI office. His right hand is raised to make a point. He wears a suit and tie. An earpiece in his left ear is connected to a computer. Also shown are a mouse and, partially, a keyboard. A blackboard is in the background with the following words and numbers written on it: } PL0T BLANK: ? / PL0T S0LID; ? / 5 -> 3.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  photograph taken

  1968

  date made (print)

  2014

  depicted (sitter)

  Engelbart, Douglas

  maker of the print

  SRI International

  ID Number

  2015.3073.02

  catalog number

  2015.3073.02

  nonaccession number

  2015.3073

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Wang LOCI-2 Electronic Calculator

  Description

  One of the first programmable electronic calculators, this instrument was announced in 1964 and sold from 1965. It was designed by An Wang (1920-1990) and his associates. Wang, a native of Shanghai, immigrated to the United States after World War II, studied computer science at Harvard University, and worked at the Harvard Computation Laboratory. He started his own business in 1951, producing magnetic core memories and other electronic equipment on order. The LOCI or “logarithmic calculating instrument” was the first product marketed by the company. Two versions of the machine were announced: the LOCI I, which was not programmable, and the LOCI II, which was.

  The desktop machine has nine digit keys arranged in an array, as well as a zero bar and a decimal point key. Depressing other keys changes the sign of the number, shifts the decimal point, shifts from the logarithmic to the work register, and shifts from the work to the logarithmic register. Further keys are for arithmetic operations, squares, square roots, inverse squares, inverse square roots, inverse logarithms, and clearance of various registers. To the right are controls for the decrement counter, the program counter, and the operation code. According to company advertising, the machine offers ten-digit precision in addition and subtraction and eight-digit precision in multiplication, division, exponentiation, root extraction, and logarithm computation. It has five storage registers of ten-digit capacity and a ten-digit display, plus a display for the sign of the answer. A cooling fan and a cord are at the back. The card reader attachment that plugs into the back holds program cards.

  A tag on the front of the machine reads: LOCI-2. A tag on the back reads: ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS AND DEVICES (/) LOCI II (/) MODEL NO. 2AB (/) SERIAL NO. 2734 (/) TEWKSBURY, MASS. U.S.A. A paper tag on the back of the machine indicates that it was serviced 4/28/68, 9/12/68, and 2/9/71.

  According to a 1964 flier, the machine was to sell for $4,750.00. Kenney says that the initial price was $6,500. Wang Laboratories would go on to sell the 300 series of calculators (from 1966) and the 700 series (from 1969), and to manufacture minicomputers and networked microcomputers.

  For related objects and documents, see 1980.0096.02 through 1980.0096.10.

  Compare 1980.0096.01 with the later 1983.0171.01 (a Wang Series 700 calculator), and the even later 2011.0022.01 (a Wang Series 600 calculator).

  References:

  There is an extensive discussion of the LOCI II at the website of the Old Calculator Museum. See:http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/wangloci.html

  Wang Laboratories, Inc., “LOCI-2 Open New Vistas to your Personal Computing . . .,” Tewksbury, Ma., 1964. This is 1980.0096.08. A similar leaflet describes the LOCI-1 and has museum number 1980.0096.07.

  Charles C. Kenney, Riding the Runaway Horse: The Rise and Decline of Wang Laboratories, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1992.

  date made

  1965 or later

  date received

  1980

  maker

  Wang Laboratories

  ID Number

  1980.0096.01

  catalog number

  1980.0096.01

  accession number

  1980.0096

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  LOCI-2 Punch Card

  Description

  This is one of a series of forty-column perforated punch cards designed for use with the programmable Wang LOCI-2 electronic calculator. Each card is marked in the bottom left corner: IBM D56709. Each card is marked on the left side: LOCI (LOGARITHMIC COMPUTER) PROGRAM.

  For the calculator, see 1980.0096.01. For the card reader, see 1980.0096.01.1. For the card punch, see1980.0096.02.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1965 or later

  maker

  IBM

  ID Number

  1980.0096.03.6

  catalog number

  1980.0096.03.6

  accession number

  1980.0096

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  LOCI-2 Punch Card

  Description

  This is one of a series of forty-column perforated punch cards designed for use with the programmable Wang LOCI-2 electronic calculator. Each card is marked in the bottom left corner: IBM D56709. Each card is marked on the left side: LOCI (LOGARITHMIC COMPUTER) PROGRAM.

  For the calculator, see 1980.0096.01. For the card reader, see 1980.0096.01.1. For the card punch, see1980.0096.02.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1965 or later

  maker

  IBM

  ID Number

  1980.0096.03.5

  catalog number

  1980.0096.03.5

  accession number

  1980.0096

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  TV Game Unit #1, 1967

  Description

  From this assemblage of metal, wires and glass tubes, the future of video games would be built.

  In 1966, while working for Sanders Associates Inc., engineer Ralph Baer began to look into new ways to use television, focusing specifically on interactive games. In 1967, he created the first of several video game test units. Called TVG#1 or TV Game Unit #1, this device, when used with an alignment generator, produced a dot on the television screen that could be manually controlled by the user. Now that he was able to interact with the television, Baer could design increasingly sophisticated interfaces and programs.

  TV Game Unit #1 was designed by Baer and built with the assistance of Bob Tremblay, a technician who worked with Baer at Saunders. Though transistors were available, Baer, who had received his bachelor’s in television engineering, choose to use the familiar and proven technology of vacuum tubes for this early test unit.

  Like all the Ralph Baer prototypes, TV Game Unit #1 was used as evidence in many patent infringement cases. It still bears many of the court exhibit labels left over from these trials, as may be seen from the photograph.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  Date made

  1966

  inventor

  Baer, Ralph H.

  patent holder

  Baer, Ralph H.

  ID Number

  2006.0102.01

  accession number

  2006.0102

  catalog number

  2006.0102.01

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  CDC 88157 Punch Card

  Description

  This eighty-column paper punch card is cream-colored. It has square corners and the top left corner is truncated. A mark at the top of the card reads: FORTRAN STATEMENT. A mark on the bottom toward the left reads: CDC 88157. Both Control Data Corporation and IBM issued cards with the number 88157 specifically for entering programs in the language FORTRAN. The first five columns on the card were a label field, the sixth a continuation field (e.g. if the column was not blank or a zero, the problem statement was assumed to be continued on the next card) , and columns 7 through 72 gave that problem statement).

  The programming language FORTRAN was introduced by IBM in 1956 and 1957, and proved popular in the 1960s. Hence the rough date assigned to the card.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1960s

  maker

  Control Data

  ID Number

  1996.0142.02

  catalog number

  1996.0142.02

  accession number

  1996.0142

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Monroe EPIC 3000 Electronic Calculator

  Description

  In 1966, Monroe International, Inc., a descendent of the Monroe Calculating Machine Company and a division of Litton Industries, introduced its EPIC electronic programmable printing calculator. The device includes a desktop keyboard and printing unit, and an attached calculating unit that sits on the floor. It has transistors, but not microprocessors.

  At the center of the desktop part of the machine is an array of nine digit keys with a 0 bar below it. To the right of these keys are function keys for the four arithmetic operations as well as a square root key and enter and print bars. To the left of the digit keys are keys for start, decimal point placement, interchange of the contents of two registers, repeat, and other operations. The printing mechanism is behind the keyboard. It displayed entries as well as the answer. A mark next to the paper tape reads: EPIC 3000. A mark below this reads: MONROE li.

  Monroe also sold a similar electronic calculator called the EPIC 2000.

  The calculator was given to the Museum by George C. Davis, who apparently used it in work as a consulting engineer in radio and television in Washington, D.C.

  References:

  Accession file, instructions 1983.0471.03.

  Personal Communication, Monroe Systems for Business.

  Vintage Calculators Web Museum.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1966

  maker

  Monroe International Corporation

  ID Number

  1983.0471.01

  accession number

  1983.0471

  catalog number

  1983.0471.01

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  IBM 5081 Punch Card Used with Punch Card Gauge

  Description

  This standard eighty-column paper punch card was received with a punch card gauge (1990.0113.01). A mark near the bottom edge at the left reads IBM5081.

  These materials were used in Robert A. McConnell's research on parapsychology.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1960s

  Maker

  IBM

  ID Number

  1990.0113.03

  accession number

  1990.0113

  catalog number

  1990.0113.03

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Ribbon for a Monroe EPIC 3000 Electronic Calculator

  Description

  This two-color ribbon is for a Monroe EPIC 3000 electronic calculator, with its paper box. One feature of the machine highly touted in advertisements was its ability to print entries and results of calculations, unlike some other electronic calculators.

  For related objects, see the rest of accession 1983.0471.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1966

  ID Number

  1983.0471.02

  accession number

  1983.0471

  catalog number

  1983.0471.02

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  The Brown Box Golf Game Accessory, 1968

  Description

  This strange-looking contraption was actually used to play an early video game.

  To play the golf game on the “Brown Box,” a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system, Baer and his colleagues mounted a golf ball on a joystick handle. This allowed the player to use a real golf club to practice his or her putting skills. Magnavox licensed the "Brown Box" and released the system as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Though it was never produced commercially, the golf accessory was covered with brown wood-grain, self-adhesive vinyl so that it would match the "Brown Box."

  Location

  Currently not on view

  Date made

  1968

  patent holder

  Baer, Ralph H.

  inventor

  Baer, Ralph H.

  ID Number

  2006.0102.11

  accession number

  2006.0102

  catalog number

  2006.0102.11

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Model of Babbage's Difference Engine No. 1 - Replica

  Description

  This is a replica of the portion of a difference engine built by Charles Babbage in 1832. Babbage, an English mathematician, hoped to compute and to print astronomical tables by machine. He proposed to estimate the value of functions using polynomials, and to use the method of finite distances to compute results.

  Babbage never completed either a difference engine or a more complex, programmable instrument he dubbed an analytical engine.

  The machine has three columns of discs. The leftmost column has six discs, each with the numbers from 0 to 9. The middle column has seven discs. The six lower ones each have the digits from 0 to 9. The uppermost disc is marked as indicated. The rightmost column has five discs numbered from 0 to 9. Above these are four discs, similarly numbered, that are immediately adjacent to one another. On the top of the machine are a gear train and a handle. The machine has a metal framework and a wooden base. The replica has containers for springs, but no springs.

  The overall dimensions include the handle. Without it, the dimensions are: 59 cm. w. x 43.5 cm. d. x 72 cm. h.

  The replica was built for display in the first exhibition devoted to mathematics and computing at the Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History). A similar replica is in the collections of IBM Corporation.

  The original on which this replica is based is at the Science Museum in London. That museum also displays a more recent attempt to build a working version of Babbage’s difference engine.

  References:

  Merzbach, Uta C., Georg Scheutz and the First Printing Calculator, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1977.

  D. Pantalony, “Collectors Displays and Replicas in Context What We Can Learn from Provenance Research in Science Museums,” in The Romance of Science: Essays in Honour of Trevor H. Levere, eds. Jed Buchwald and Larry Stewart, Cham: Springer, 2017, pp.257-275, esp. pp.268-273. This article discusses replicas of the Babbage difference engine, but not the one at the Smithsonian, which was by a different maker than other replicas provided by IBM.

  Swade, Doron. The Difference Engine: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer, New York: Viking, 2000.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1963

  date received

  1963

  maker

  Daniel I. Hadley & Associates

  ID Number

  MA.323584

  accession number

  252309

  catalog number

  323584

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  The Brown Box Lightgun, 1967–68

  Description

  This toy gun proves that target-shooting games were part of video game history from the very beginning.

  This lightgun was used to play the Target Practice game on the “Brown Box,” a prototype for the first multiplayer, multiprogram video game system. Magnavox licensed the Brown Box and released the system as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. The lightgun and four target games were later sold as a separate expansion package.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  Date made

  1967-1968

  patent holder

  Baer, Ralph H.

  inventor

  Baer, Ralph H.

  ID Number

  2006.0102.06

  catalog number

  2006.0102.06

  accession number

  2006.0102

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  R.C. Allen Musicwriter

  Description (Brief)

  One (1) R.C. Allen musicwriter

  Mechanical typewriter with beige body with brown keys. Four-line keyboard. 14" carriage. Keys are musical symbols and numbers.

  Inscription: "R.C. Allen", "Musicwriter" On back label: "Musicwriter Patented Typewriter - U.S. Paten No. 511,941; Great Britain, No. 712,430, Nov. 3, 1954; Switzerland, Patent No. 298,526; Germany DBP 909,101." "MUSIC PRINT CORPORATION Denver, Colorado, U.S.A."

  Description

  This Musicwriter “typewriter” was manufactured by R.C. Allen of Grand Rapids, Michigan during the mid 20th century. The Musicwriter was used to compose sheet music. Instead of a letter-writing typewriter, each key could print a different type of note, which could be raised or lowered on the musical staff.

  R. C. Allen was founded in 1932 as a manufacturer of cash registers, adding machines, and altimeters. R.C. Allen purchased the Woodstock Typewriter Company of Woodstock, Illinois in 1950 and began manufacturing typewriters and musicwriters such as this machine.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1960

  maker

  R. C. Allen

  ID Number

  1984.0914.01

  accession number

  1984.0914

  catalog number

  1984.0914.01

  serial number

  8C-2105274 14

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Bound Printout from COBOL Test Program Run December 6, 1960, at RCA

  Description

  COBOL was one of the first programming languages designed to run on computers built by several different manufacturers. In December 1960 programmers at Remington Rand UNIVAC and at RCA successfully ran the same COBOL test programs on a Univac II and an RCA 501 computer.

  This is the printout from the RCA demonstration. It contains two programs. One produces a profit and loss report for a corporation. It is a modification of a program developed by Warren G. Simmons of US Steel for a UNIVAC II.

  According to the printout, the actual program used in the test was written by J. Farinelli. This was probably programmer Joseph D. Farinelli of US Steel. The second program, which computes cash sales and credit balances, was written by Carl H. Thorne Jr. of the General Services Administration for an RCA computer.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1960

  maker

  RCA Corporation

  ID Number

  2010.3050.2

  catalog number

  2010.3050.2

  nonaccession number

  2010.3050

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Punch Cards used with a PDP-9 Minicomputer

  Description

  In the mid-1960s, the Computer Science Department at RAND Corporation turned its attention to developing computer graphics. A set of programs written in the programming language FORTRAN for the PDP-9 minicomputer were used to plot contour lines useful in determining the line of sight for microwave radiation emitted from a given point on a map. These cards have some of the data for one of these programs. The cards are white with a pink border on the top (occasional cards have a green border). Groups of cards are not numbered but groups of data are designated by black marks on the edge. A mark on the first card reads: 3000 500. A printout of a related program has non-accession number 1990.3046.10.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1968

  maker

  IBM

  ID Number

  1990.3046.05

  catalog number

  1990.3046.05

  nonaccession number

  1990.3046

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Photograph, The Family Tree of Computer Design

  Description

  This photographic print shows an updated version of the family tree of computers first distributed by the National Science Foundation in the late 1950s. For a version of the first design, see the image in Bell and Newell.

  This example belonged to Margaret Fox.

  Reference:

  C. Gordon Bell and A. Newell, Computer Structures: Readings and Examples, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971, 39.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  ca 1963

  maker

  National Science Foundation

  ID Number

  2013.3034.20

  catalog number

  2013.3034.20

  nonaccession number

  2013.3034

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Logic Unit for the Green Machine, A Prototype Desktop Electronic Calculator

  Description

  As a graduate student in electrical engineering at the University of California – Berkeley, Thomas E. Osborne began thinking about the design of a desktop electronic calculator that could compute the very large and very small numbers encountered in scientific work. In January of 1964 he formed the firm Logic Design, Inc., to develop his ideas. By late 1964 he had built a prototype keyboard and display (1978.0311.01), as well as this prototype logic unit.

  The framework of the logic unit is a group of five rectangular perforated boards, arranged in the shape of a box. Numerous smaller boards are perpendicular to the base and to three of the sides. Metal supports are along the base of two opposite sides. Circuit components include transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes, and a plug. A second plug is loose in the box.

  Elements of the green machine were incorporated in Hewlett-Packard’s first commercial electronic calculator, the HP9100. For a prototype of that machine, see 1978.0311.03. For related documentation, see invention notebooks and photographs by Osborne (1978.0311.03 through 1978.0311.14). For purchase orders of components used in the prototype, see 1985.0264.01.

  References:

  Bernard M. Oliver, “How the Model 9100A Was Developed,” Hewlett-Packard Journal, September, 1968. A copy of this article is at the HP Museum website.

  The website of the University of Wyoming contains biographical information about Osborne.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1964

  date received

  1978

  maker

  Osborne, Thomas E.

  ID Number

  1978.0311.02

  accession number

  1978.0311

  catalog number

  1978.0311.02

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

• 

  Punch Cards used with a PDP-9 Minicomputer

  Description

  In the mid-1960s, the Computer Science Department at RAND Corporation turned its attention to developing computer graphics. A set of programs written in the programming language FORTRAN for the PDP-9 minicomputer were used to plot contour lines useful in determining the line of sight for microwave radiation emitted from a given point on a map.

  This group of cards is labeled: Last version using SC4020 plot routine. The cards have the data for a FORTRAN program with non-accession number 1990.3046.10. Theys are white with a green border along the top. A mark on the first card reads: $IBFTC CLAQR REF.

  The SC4020 was a computer-controlled microfilm printer and plotter produced by the Stromberg-Carlson Corporation. It was one of the first devices sold specifically to visualize computer calculations.

  Location

  Currently not on view

  date made

  1968

  maker

  IBM

  ID Number

  1990.3046.07

  catalog number

  1990.3046.07

  nonaccession number

  1990.3046

  Data Source

  National Museum of American History

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