![James Pomerene IAS machine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/James_Pomerene_IAS_machine.jpg)
The IAS machine was the first electronic
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
built at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
(IAS) in
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
. It is sometimes called the von Neumann machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by
John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
, a mathematics professor at both Princeton University and IAS. The computer was built from late 1945 until 1951 under his direction.
The general organization is called
von Neumann architecture
The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. The ...
, even though it was both conceived and implemented by others.
The computer is in the collection of the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and military history. Among the items on display is t ...
but is not currently on display.
History
Julian Bigelow
Julian Bigelow (March 19, 1913 – February 17, 2003) was a pioneering American computer engineer. Life
Bigelow was born in 1913 in Nutley, New Jersey. He obtained a master's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying electrica ...
was hired as chief engineer in May 1946.
Hewitt Crane
Hewitt D. Crane (1927–2008) was an American engineer best known for his pioneering work at SRI International on ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting), for Bank of America, magnetic digital logic, neuristor logic, the development of an ...
,
Herman Goldstine
Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was a mathematician and computer scientist, who worked as the director of the IAS machine at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study and helped to develop ENIAC, the ...
,
Gerald Estrin
Gerald Estrin (September 9, 1921 – March 29, 2012) was an American computer scientist, and professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department. He is known for his work on the organization of computer systems, on parallel processing and SARA ...
,
Arthur Burks
Arthur Walter Burks (October 13, 1915 – May 14, 2008) was an American mathematician who worked in the 1940s as a senior engineer on the project that contributed to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. ...
,
George W. Brown and
Willis Ware
Howard George Willis Ware (August 31, 1920 – November 22, 2013), popularly known as Willis Howard Ware was an American computer pioneer who co-developed the IAS machine that laid down the blueprint of the modern day computer in the late 20th ...
also worked on the project.
The machine was in limited operation in the summer of 1951 and fully operational on June 10, 1952. It was in operation until July 15, 1958.
Description
The IAS machine was a
binary
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...
computer with a 40-bit
word
A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...
, storing two 20-bit instructions in each word. The memory was 1,024 words (5.1 kilobytes). Negative numbers were represented in
two's complement
Two's complement is a mathematical operation to reversibly convert a positive binary number into a negative binary number with equivalent (but negative) value, using the binary digit with the greatest place value (the leftmost bit in big- endian ...
format. It had two general-purpose
registers available: the Accumulator (AC) and Multiplier/Quotient (MQ). It used 1,700 vacuum tubes (triode types: 6J6, 5670, 5687, a few diodes: type 6AL5, 150 pentodes to drive the memory CRTs, and 41 CRTs (type: 5CP1A): 40 used as Williams tubes for memory plus one more to monitor the state of a memory tube).
[The history and development of the electronic computer project at the Institute for Advanced Study. Ware. 1953]
/ref> The memory was originally designed for about 2,300 RCA
The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
Selectron vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied.
The type kn ...
s. Problems with the development of these complex tubes forced the switch to Williams tube
The Williams tube, or the Williams–Kilburn tube named after inventors Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn, is an early form of computer memory. It was the first random-access digital storage device, and was used successfully in several early co ...
s.
It weighed about .
It was an asynchronous
Asynchrony is the state of not being in synchronization.
Asynchrony or asynchronous may refer to:
Electronics and computing
* Asynchrony (computer programming), the occurrence of events independent of the main program flow, and ways to deal with ...
machine, meaning that there was no central clock regulating the timing of the instructions. One instruction started executing when the previous one finished. The addition time was 62 microseconds
A microsecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one millionth (0.000001 or 10−6 or ) of a second. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when Unicode is not available.
A microsecond is equal to 1000 n ...
and the multiplication time was 713 microseconds.
Although some claim the IAS machine was the first design to mix programs and data in a single memory, that had been implemented four years earlier by the 1948 Manchester Baby
The Manchester Baby, also called the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), was the first electronic stored-program computer. It was built at the University of Manchester by Frederic Calland Williams, Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Ge ...
. The Soviet MESM
MESM (Ukrainian: MEOM, Мала Електронна Обчислювальна Машина; Russian: МЭСМ, Малая Электронно-Счетная Машина; 'Small Electronic Calculating Machine') was the first universally program ...
also became operational prior to the IAS machine.
Von Neumann showed how the combination of instructions and data in one memory could be used to implement loops, by modifying branch instructions when a loop was completed, for example. The requirement that instructions, data and input/output be accessed via the same bus later came to be known as the Von Neumann bottleneck
The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the '' First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. T ...
.
IAS machine derivatives
Plans for the IAS machine were widely distributed to any schools, businesses, or companies interested in computing machines, resulting in the construction of several derivative computers referred to as "IAS machines," although they were not software compatible.
Some of these "IAS machines" were:
*AVIDAC
The AVIDAC or ''Argonne Version of the Institute's Digital Automatic Computer'', an early computer built by Argonne National Laboratory, was partially based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann. It was built by the Laboratory's P ...
(Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...
)
*BESK
BESK (''Binär Elektronisk SekvensKalkylator'', Swedish for "Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator") was Sweden's first electronic computer, using vacuum tubes instead of relays. It was developed by '' Matematikmaskinnämnden'' ( Swedish Boar ...
(Stockholm)
*BESM
BESM (БЭСМ) is the name of a series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950–60s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya Elektronno-Schetnaya Mashina" ("Большая Электронно-Счётная Машина"), literally "Large E ...
(Moscow)
*Circle Computer (Hogan Laboratories, Inc.), 1954[
*
*]
*CYCLONE
In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...
(Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...
)
*DASK
The DASK was the first computer in Denmark. It was commissioned in 1955, designed and constructed by Regnecentralen, and began operation in September 1957. DASK is an acronym for Dansk Aritmetisk Sekvens Kalkulator or ''Danish Arithmetic Sequence ...
(Regnecentralen, Copenhagen 1958)
*GEORGE
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Washington, First President of the United States
* George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...
(Argonne National Laboratory)
*IBM 701
The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer and its first series production mainframe computer, which was announced to the public on May ...
(19 installations)
*ILLIAC I
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
(University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...
)
**MUSASINO-1 The MUSASINO-1 was one of the earliest electronic digital computers built in Japan. Construction started at the Electrical Communication Laboratories of NTT at Musashino, Tokyo in 1952 and was completed in July 1957. The computer was used until ...
(Musashino, Tokyo
is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 147,492 in 77,779 households, and a population density of 13,000 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Based on the 2015 Ka ...
, Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
)
*JOHNNIAC
The JOHNNIAC was an early computer built by the RAND Corporation (not Remington Rand, maker of the contemporaneous UNIVAC I computer) and based on the von Neumann architecture that had been pioneered on the IAS machine. It was named in honor of ...
(RAND
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
)
*MANIAC I
__NOTOC__
The MANIAC I (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model I'') was an early computer built under the direction of Nicholas Metropolis at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. It was based on the von Neuma ...
(Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...
)
*MISTIC
The MISTIC, or ''Michigan State Integral Computer'', was the first computer system at Michigan State University and was built by its students, faculty and staff in 1957. Powered by vacuum tubes, its design was based on ILLIAC, the supercomputer bu ...
(Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
)
*ORACLE
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word '' ...
(Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research and ...
)
*ORDVAC
The ORDVAC (''Ordnance Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)'', is an early computer built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. A successor to the ENIAC (along with EDVAC built earlier). ...
(Aberdeen Proving Ground
Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work at ...
)
*PERM
Perm or PERM may refer to:
Places
*Perm, Russia, a city in Russia
** Permsky District, the district
**Perm Krai, a federal subject of Russia since 2005
**Perm Oblast, a former federal subject of Russia 1938–2005
**Perm Governorate, an administra ...
(Munich)[''Turing's Cathedral'', by George Dyson, 2012, p. 287]
*SARA
Sara may refer to:
Arts, media and entertainment Film and television
* ''Sara'' (1992 film), 1992 Iranian film by Dariush Merhjui
* ''Sara'' (1997 film), 1997 Polish film starring Bogusław Linda
* ''Sara'' (2010 film), 2010 Sri Lankan Sinhal ...
(SAAB
Saab or SAAB may refer to:
Brands and enterprises
* Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB
** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB
* Saab Automobile, a fo ...
)
* SEAC (Washington, D.C.)
*SILLIAC
The SILLIAC (''Sydney version of the Illinois Automatic Computer'', i.e. the ''Sydney ILLIAC''), an early computer built by the University of Sydney, Australia, was based on the ILLIAC and ORDVAC computers developed at the University of Illin ...
(University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
)
* SMIL (Lund University
, motto = Ad utrumque
, mottoeng = Prepared for both
, established =
, type = Public research university
, budget = SEK 9 billion [WEIZAC
WEIZAC (''Weizmann Automatic Computer'') was the first computer in Israel, and one of the first large-scale, stored-program, electronic computers in the world.
It was built at the Weizmann Institute during 1954–1955, based on the Institute for ...]
(Weizmann Institute
The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...
)
See also
*Von Neumann architecture
The von Neumann architecture — also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture — is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by John von Neumann, and by others, in the ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC''. The ...
*List of vacuum tube computers
Vacuum-tube computers, now called first-generation computers, are programmable digital computers using vacuum-tube logic circuitry. They were preceded by systems using electromechanical relays and followed by systems built from discrete transis ...
References
Further reading
* Gilchrist, Bruce
"Remembering Some Early Computers, 1948-1960"
''Columbia University EPIC'', 2006, pp. 7–9. (archived 2006) Contains some autobiographical material on Gilchrist's use of the IAS computer beginning in 1952.
* Dyson, George
''Turing's Cathedral''
2012, Pantheon, A book about the history of the Institute of Advanced Study around the making of this computer. Chapters 6 onward deal with this computer specifically.
*
*
External links
Oral history interviews concerning the Institute for Advanced Study
see also individual interviews wit
Willis H. Ware
Arthur Burks
Herman Goldstine
Martin Schwarzschild
and others. Charles Babbage Institute
The IT History Society (ITHS) is an organization that supports the history and scholarship of information technology by encouraging, fostering, and facilitating archival and historical research. Formerly known as the Charles Babbage Foundation, ...
, University of Minnesota.
*
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
– Copy of the original draft by John von Neumann
John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
*Photos
JvN standing in front of IAS machine
an
another view of IAS machine
from
{{Mainframes
*IAS machine
Vacuum tube computers