Computers & Business Machines
Imagine the loss, 100 years from now, if museums hadn't begun preserving the artifacts of the computer age. The last few decades offer proof positive of why museums must collect continuously—to document technological and social transformations already underway.
The museum's collections contain mainframes, minicomputers, microcomputers, and handheld devices. Computers range from the pioneering ENIAC to microcomputers like the Altair and the Apple I. A Cray2 supercomputer is part of the collections, along with one of the towers of IBM's Deep Blue, the computer that defeated reigning champion Garry Kasparov in a chess match in 1997. Computer components and peripherals, games, software, manuals, and other documents are part of the collections. Some of the instruments of business include adding machines, calculators, typewriters, dictating machines, fax machines, cash registers, and photocopiers
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Sheets, SCM Marchant Live Tab (Model TR10FA) (Model AB10FA) Adjustment Manual
- Description
- This is a photocopy of pages 1 thru 9 of an SCM adjustment manual.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1961
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1984.3079.07.04
- nonaccession number
- 1984.3079
- catalog number
- 1984.3079.07.04
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Documentation, SCM Marchant Adding Machine Model 1100 Special Supplementary Parts Catalog
- Description
- This is a photocopy of pages 71 thru 85 of the parts catalog.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1961
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1984.3079.07.02
- nonaccession number
- 1984.3079
- catalog number
- 1984.3079.07.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Oakland Si Scheer/ Congress Vietnam No
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1966
- Associated Date
- 1966
- maker
- Star Engraving Co.
- ID Number
- 2018.0158.040
- accession number
- 2018.0158
- catalog number
- 2018.0158.040
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, V-Series Calculators Price List
- Description
- This stapled set of sheets lists prices for parts of the V-Series Calculators (e.g. calculating machines) made and sold by SCM.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1963
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.067
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.067
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, Model Consolidation (Model CMF, CM, CDF, CD) Service Instruction Book
- Description
- In 1962, SCM Marchant published this description of maintenace for the newly introduced Model CMF calculating machine as it related to earlier models CM, CDF, and CD.
- The document is paginated I-XV and then 1-162.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1962
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.065
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.065
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, Cogito 616 Electronic Printing Calculator Service & Parts Manual
- Description
- This spiral-bound printed illustrated volume is a service manual for an SCM Marchant electronic printing calculator.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1968
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.073
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.073
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Withdraw Troops from Vietnam/ SCHEER for Congress/ End Poverty in Oakland
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1966
- Associated Date
- 1966
- maker
- Star Engraving Co.
- ID Number
- 2018.0158.038
- accession number
- 2018.0158
- catalog number
- 2018.0158.038
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, Bookkeeping Machine Typewriter Section
- Description
- This manual describes parts and maintenance of the typewriter section of a SCM bookkeeping machine.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1963
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.066
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.066
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Documentation, SCM Marchant Adding Machine Model 1100, Special Supplementary Service Instruction Book
- Description
- This is a photocopy of pages 57 thru 66 of the instruction book.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1961
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1984.3079.07.01
- nonaccession number
- 1984.3079
- catalog number
- 1984.3079.07.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, K-Line Service Manual, Basic Adding Machine Section
- Description
- This stapled set of sheets describes operation and parts of the K-Line listing adding machine sold by SCM.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1963
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.068
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.068
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
U.S. Government Catalog and Price Lists for Marchant
- Description
- Government agencies, particularly U.S. government agencies, purchased SCM Marchant calculating machines at reduced price lists. These documents include SCM Marchant catalog and price lists for U.S. government agencies for the fiscal years 1958-1959 and 1963-1964.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1958-1964
- maker
- SCM
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.090
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.090
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Sheets, Documentation on Tenkeymatic
- Description
- By 1960 the Marchant Calculating Machine Company had been absorbed and was part of SCM (Smith Corona Marchant) Corporation. When the company wished to introduce a ten-key printing electric calculating machine, it decided to import and rename a machine made by the German firm of Hamann. It was dubbed the SCM Marchant TKM, or Tenkeymatic. The following documents describe operation of the machine:
- 1. 1979.3084.63.1 - Tenkeymatic Adjustment Manual, pages 1 throu 53, 1959.
- 2. 1979.3084.63.2 - Tenkeymatic Trouble Shooting Guide, pages 1 thru 13, 1960.
- 3. 1979.3084.63.3; - Tenkematic Service Instruction Book, 1960, pages 1-107.
- 4. 1979.3084.63.4 - Tenkeymatic Disassembly & Reassembly Procedure, 1960, pages 1-18.
- 5. 1979.3084.63.5 - Tenkeymatic Parts Catalog and Price List, 1961, pages 1-48.
- 6. 1979.3084.63.6; Bulletin for the Tenkeymatic, T-1, Tenkeymatic Instructions, 1960.
- 7. 1979.3084.63.7; Design Changes for the Tenkeymatic, TK-6,Special Tools for Tenkeymatic, 1960
- In addition, there are three loose sheets. One is entitled Disassembly and Reassembly Procedure Book for Tenkeymatic Calculator. A second is called Service Instruction Book for Tenkeymatic Calculator. A third is entitled Adjustment Manual for Tenkeymatic Calculator.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1959-1961
- date made
- `1959-1961
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.063
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.063
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Reel #198 San Francisco, California U.S.A.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1946 - 1966
- maker
- Sawyers Inc.
- VIEW-MASTER
- ID Number
- 2015.0344.35.13
- accession number
- 2015.0344
- catalog number
- 2015.0344.35.13
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Notebook, Service Instruction Book
- Description
- This notebook includes technical specifications for SCM Marchant calculating machines dating from 1959 to1961.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1959-1961
- date made
- 1959-1961
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.062
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.062
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Notebook, SCM Procedures Manual
- Description
- In the mid-1960s, after years of selling mechanical calculation machines, Marchant (now the Marchant division of SCM) introduced desktop electronic calculators. This notebook provides information about the repari of several SCM Marchant electronic caclulators, specifically the Cogito 240-240SR, Marchant I, Marchant /IF-80, Marchant I - RX/RXX, Cogito 566 PR, and model F-160P/6161/6162/4161.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1960s
- date made
- 1965-1971
- maker
- SCM Corporation
- ID Number
- 1979.3084.072
- nonaccession number
- 1979.3084
- catalog number
- 1979.3084.072
- 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
-
Pamphlet, How to Use Log Log Slide Rules
- Description
- American slide rule manufacturers sometimes hired university professors to prepare instruction manuals for their products. Maurice L. Hartung, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, prepared this one for Pickett, Inc. The ninety-five page paperbound volume describes a wide range of scales found on Pickett slide rules. It was copyrighted in 1953.
- The instructions came to the Smithsonian with a Pickett Model N-500-ES slide rule from 1962 or later (see 1999.0096.01).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1962
- ID Number
- 1999.0096.02
- catalog number
- 1999.0096.02
- accession number
- 1999.0096
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Leaves
- Description (Brief)
- Silver gelatin, mounted. Aerial view of approximately four different types of leaves. (Fern leaves, poison ivy are the two identified). Signed, ink (recto: bottom right) Verso: Adams stamp, title handritten, ink, top center.
- Description
- Ansel Adams (1902-1984) is one of the most well-known twentieth century photographers. His contributions to the field of photography include his innovation and teaching of the Zone System. The quality of his photographs set the standard by which many straight photographs are judged.
- The collection in the Photographic History Collection consists of twenty-five photographs, all printed in or about 1968. All are gelatin silver, mounted, labeled and signed in ink by the photographer. The photographs include some of his most well-known images, but also portraits and objects. The selection of images was made in collaboration between the collecting curator and Adams.
- negative made
- 1933
- print made
- 1968
- maker
- Adams, Ansel
- ID Number
- PG.69.117.12
- catalog number
- 69.117.12
- accession number
- 282326
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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