Once a year the computer industry comes together to celebrate these amazing machines!
Global Events and Celebrations on World Computer Day 2024
Thursday, February 15th, 5PM - 7PM eastern USA
Welcome to World Computer Day 2024
This event is organized by Compuseum.
This was Virtual Zoom Event - It was free; courtesy of Sponsor generosity.
Occurred 5PM-7PM (eastern USA) Zoom platform on Thursday, February 15th, 2024
Recording of event here on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oraTpvFewT4
Two Hour Global Zoom Call. 8 VIP speakers, 15 minutes each.
Reference www.WorldComputerDay.org
Hosted by System Source Museum of Hunt Valley, MD; Mike Jones - Zoom Master
Theme of Event...
THE BIG THREE (3) EARLY COMPUTING INNOVATIONS
- Looking Beyond the Famous Computer Successes
- Historical Significance of an Apparently Failed Project
- Were They Ahead of their Time?
- Rethinking Failure in Computer Heritage
Introduction by Dr. Thomas Haigh, co-author of "A New History of Modern Computing" Purchase book here: https://a.co/d/esgXbCS
1) RCA Selectron of Lancaster PA
The Selectron was an early form of digital computer memory - 1943; The first step in "storage" 1943-49
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectron_tube
https://www.rcaselectron.com/sysafcrc.html
Speakers-
Bob Roswell, CEO of System Source Computer Museum
Charles Osborne of https://RCAselectron.com/
Robert Gillespie consummate Tube Collector
2) Philco Transac - Philco of Philadelphia
Philco produced the world's fastest all-transistor computer the Transac S-2000, in 1958.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philco_computers
https://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_hersteller_detail.cfm?Company_Id=741
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/philco/2000/
Speakers-
Paul Kyzivat (Philco computers- Transac, 212)
Bill Mensch- Philco and its computer, semiconductor and transistor past
Note- We are still seeking another speaker on Transac!
Philco CXPQ at David Taylor Model Basin, US Navy https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0650605.pdf
3) ORDVAC to ILLIAC - For Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland
The University of Illinois Tie with Aberdeen. Ordvac to Illiac Series
For the University of Illinois. All 4 are "one off" machines. 1964
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC
Discussion of Illiac Suite for String Quartet- First score composed by a computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiac_Suite
Built in Paoli, PA (Illiac IV)
https://s3data.computerhistory.org/brochures/burroughs.illiac-iv.1974.102624911.pdf
Speakers-
Daniel Atkins III, University of Michigan, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Illiac I, II and III
John Day, Professor at Boston University, developer of early operating systems, experienced in Illiac IV, Arpanet and Internet
Gary Feierbach (Illiac IV) https://www.linkedin.com/in/feierbach/
References:
Philadelphia and the Birth of Modern Computing, by Ceruzzi
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5215/pennlega.15.1.0026
Philco Transac
Purdue University e-Pubs
PHILCO: Some Recollections of the PHILCO TRANSAC S-2000
By Saul Rosen, 1991, Report Number: 91-051
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cstech/891
Philco CXPQ computer at David Taylor Model Basin, US Navy - 1959, Barbara Sherard, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0650605.pdf
Speakers Biographical Sketch-
Charles Osborne -
Charles Osborne is an electrical engineer who received his degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, back in the seventies. From his first job as a design engineer at Tektronix, inc., he has always had a side interest in the history of computing and the electronic components that made it possible.
Paul Kyzivat -
Educated at MIT with a BS in Mathematics. Worked in software development roles for Ford Motor Company, Honeywell Information Systems, Digital Equipment Corporation, Rogue Wave Software, Cisco Systems, IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) over a span of more than 55 years. These jobs focused on operating system development, software development tools, integration and control of manufacturing equipment, distributed object system (CORBA) products and standards, Internet telephony (SIP) standards. Systems used include Philco 212, Honeywell 6xxx systems with GCOS and Multics, DEC VMS and TOPS-20 systems, Windows, Unix.
Gary Feierbach -
Educated at U.C. Berkeley BA in Math and Physics and an MS in EE Software and hardware engineering. Worked for Information Management Inc., Autologic Inc., Minicomputer Technology, NASA Institute for Advanced Computation, Intergraph Corp., Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer. These positions covering 40 years included assignments in various engineering and corporate roles. Areas of interest included CPU design, system programming, large applications, hardware and software reliability, and currently AI.
Semi-retired.
John Day -
John Day has been involved in research and development of computer networks since 1970, when his group at the University of Illinois was 12th site on ARPANET (precursor to the Internet). Day was in industry for 20 years working for major companies such as Codex, Motorola and BBN. and a major contributor to the development of network management architecture. Mr. Day has published Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals (Prentice Hall, 2008) as "the most important book on network protocols in general and the Internet in particular ever written." Today Mr. Day splits his time between teaching at Boston University and serving as the International Representative for INCITS T3 and editor of DIS 4396, the RINA standards and holds over a dozen patents.
This event will be hosted in the Zoom virtual networking platform including images, chat, and breakout rooms. We highly encourage utilizing Google Chrome and joining via laptop or desktop rather than from a mobile device for the best user experience.
Featured on World Computer Day 2024
RCA Selectron Memory Tube- Lancaster, PA
The Selectron was an early form of digital computer memory. Constructed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and developed by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). It was a vacuum tube that stored digital data as electrostatic charges using technology similar to the Williams tube storage device. A stepping stone in memory devices that then led to the magnetic-core memory which became almost universal.
Philco Transac - Lansdale, PA
Philco was one of the pioneers of transistorized computers. After the company developed the surface barrier transistor in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, which was much faster than previous point-contact types, it was awarded contracts for military and government computers. Commercialized derivatives of some of these designs became successful business and scientific computers. The TRANSAC (Transistor Automatic Computer) Model S-1000 was released as a scientific computer. The TRANSAC S-2000 mainframe computer system, marketed as the "fastest computer in the world, was first produced in 1958, and a family of compatible machines, with increasing performance, was released over the next several years.
Illiac Series - Paoli, PA (Illiac IV)
The ILLIAC (Illinois Automatic Computer) was a series of supercomputers built at a variety of locations, some at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In all, five computers were built in this series between 1951 and 1974. The most inspirational was the Illiac IV constructed in Paoli, Pennsylvania having one of the first attempts at a massively parallel computer. Key to the design as conceived by Daniel Slotnick, the director of the project, was fairly high parallelism with up to 256 processors, used to allow the machine to work on large data sets in what would later be known as array processing.
Event Hosting Sponsor- System Source Museum, Hunt Valley, MD
The System Source Computer Museum displays technology from the inception of computing. Founders Bob Roswell and Maury Weinstein opened ComputerLand, a predecessor to System Source, in 1981. Rapid advances in technology in the early 1980’s made some ComputerLand inventory obsolete before it could be sold. Bob and Maury’s old ComputerLand store on Redwood Street had a bank vault in the basement, so they filled it with vintage technology. Today, the extensive collection is at the headquarters of System Source, an IT systems integrator in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Bob enjoys leading tour groups, building the museum’s collection and sharing stories of vintage computers with Museum visitors.
Location Map of Objects Presented on World Computer Day 2024
Here's a little location map to keep you oriented.
RCA Selectron Memory tube, Lancaster, PA
Philco Transac, Lansdale, PA
Illiav IV, Paoli, PA
The System Source Computer Museum displays technology from the inception of computing in Hunt Valley, Maryland.
Events Around the Globe on World Computer Day!
Tiny ACE – Exploring Alan Turing’s Automatic Computing Engine
Tiny ACE – Exploring Alan Turing’s Automatic Computing Engine
Speaker: Jürgen Müller
Date: Thursday 15th February 2024
Time: 14:30 UK Time
Location: 25 Copthall Ave, London EC2R 7BP and
Via the Internet using ZOOM.
Organized by the Computer Conservation Society, London
About the seminar on World Computer Day 2024
The Pilot ACE computer was built at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington from 1946 to 1951, based on a design by Alan Turing. While intended merely as a testbed for a full-scale “Automatic Computing Engine“, it was one of the fastest computers of its time with a 1 MHz bit clock, and was used extensively for calculations e.g. in aerodynamics. Learn more by joining the event!
Social Media Posts on World Computer Day 2024
Learn More about Computers
Order this book, now!
All there is to know about the history of computing!
A highly recommended book about how the computer became universal.
Over the past fifty years, the computer has been transformed from a hulking scientific supertool and data processing workhorse, remote from the experiences of ordinary people, to a diverse family of devices that billions rely on to play games, shop, stream music and movies, communicate, and count their steps. In A New History of Modern Computing, Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi trace these changes. A comprehensive reimagining of Ceruzzi's A History of Modern Computing, this new volume uses each chapter to recount one such transformation, describing how a particular community of users and producers remade the computer into something new.
Authors Haigh and Ceruzzi ground their accounts of these computing revolutions in the longer and deeper history of computing technology. They begin with the story of the 1945 ENIAC computer, which introduced the vocabulary of "programs" and "programming," and proceed through email, pocket calculators, personal computers, the World Wide Web, videogames, smart phones, and our current world of computers everywhere--in phones, cars, appliances, watches, and more. Finally, they consider the Tesla Model S as an object that simultaneously embodies many strands of computing.