A Bell Telephone Laboratories’ Computing Machine—I

Abstract

High-speed digital computing machines which have been developed during the past few years are of two kinds, electronic and electro-mechanical. In the latter class two families have come to prominence. One consists of the machines built by H. H. Aiken at Harvard University,¹ the other of a series of machines built by the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. This article deals with the latter family, and specifically with its largest and youngest member, a machine which has been built in the past two years in duplicate, one unit for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (Langley Field, Va.) and one for the Ordnance Department of the U. S. Army (Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.).

This is the first of two articles by Dr. ALT describing a Bell Telephone Laboratories’ machine. The second article will treat machine control, operational characteristics, and problems for the machine.