[vcf-midatlantic] Looking for some knowledgeable with the Harvard Mark I

[Jim Scheef]

Bryan,

I do not represent to be a resource on these machines but have read many
books on the history of computing. Most of what I've read about the Mark I
was in books with chapters on Howard Aiken or Grace Hopper. I seem to recall
that the Charles J. Bashe/Emerson W. Pugh book about early IBM machines,
IBM's Early Computers (1985), had some information. My memory sort of
distills down to the factoid that the Mark I had almost no ability to branch
in a "program" owing to the instructions being read from a rather wide
punched tape and thus being sequential. I suspect your friend is looking for
more depth, but the bibliographies of these books may put him on the right
trail.

Jim

 

From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces at lists.vcfed.org> On Behalf Of
W. Bryan Caudle via vcf-midatlantic
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2020 12:48 PM
To: vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org
Cc: W. Bryan Caudle <bcaudle at ctsi.net>
Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Looking for some knowledgeable with the Harvard
Mark I