The Oslo Analyzer (1938 – 1954) was a mechanical analog

differential analyzer The differential analyser is a mechanical analogue computer designed to solve differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. It was one of the first advanced computing devices to be used operat ...

, a type of computer, built in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

from 1938 to 1942. It was the largest computer of its kind in the world when completed. The differential analyzer was based on the same principles as the pioneer machine developed by

Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all warti ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. It was designed and built by Svein Rosseland in cooperation with chief engineer Lie (1909-1983) of the Norwegian commercial instrument manufacturer Gundersen & Løken. The machine was installed at the first floor of the Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

. The building as well as the machine was financed in large parts by grants from The Rockefeller Foundation. Rosseland visited MIT for several months in 1933, and studied Bush's work. Rosseland's design was a substantial development from Bush's machine, and much more compact. The machine had twelve integrators (compared to six of the original MIT machine) and could calculate differential equations of the twelfth order, or two simultaneous equations of the sixth order. When it was finished, the Oslo Analyzer was the most powerful of its kind in the world. Upon the German occupation of Norway on April 9, 1940, Rosseland realized that the machine might become a desirable research tool in the German war effort. So Rosseland personally removed all precision fabricated integration wheels and buried the wheels in sealed packages in the garden behind the institute. The machine contributed to a number of scientific projects, both domestic and international. When it was dismantled, sections of it were put on display at the

Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology ( no, Norsk Teknisk Museum) is located in Oslo, Norway. The museum is an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. History The museum as an institution was founded in 1914 as a ...

References

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External links

''Svein Rosseland and the Oslo Analyzer''
Early computers One-of-a-kind computers