From: John Conover <john@email.johncon.com>
Subject: forwarded message from root@.johncon.com
Date: 30 Mar 2001 08:56:05 -0000
I haven't done one in awhile, so, here goes. Interesting "On This Day,
Mar 30 ..." concerning "UNIVAC I turned over to the Bureau of the
Census. (1962)".
By 1947 large-scale calculating were for the most part thought of as
expensive scientific specialty items-number crunchers used for
simulating nuclear material state equations. Yet that year the
principals in ENIAC's (the first computer-developed at Aberdeen
Proving Ground for calculation of artillery ballistic trajectories,)
design formed the Eckert-Machly Computer Corporation, (soon to be
known as Remington Rand,) to build the first computer designed for
commercial use-the UNIVAC.
There were three UNIVAC systems ordered by the US Government, and
UNIVAC had been developed expressly for the business world-studies
were made of typical applications in insurance, a field with perhaps
the largest requirements for data processing. The first program for
business was written by none other than Grace Hopper, (who invented
the COBOL programming language, and retired as a Navy Admiral.) The
program was a typical mortality study.
In the late 1940's, about 10K tons of punch cards per year were being
used in the US. The builders of the UNIVAC adopted iron-plated metal
tape as a way to store large quantities of information, by using
electric pulses to magnetize a pattern of dots across the tape. The
use of tape as a compact means of storage in the 1950 census led
quickly to its use by commercial firms.
The first UNIVAC was delivered to the Bureau of the Census on June 14,
1951 by Remington Rand, (so named for James H. Rand, president of the
company.) The vice president of Remington Rand was General Leslie
R. Groves, a retired civil engineer in the US Army Corps of Engineers,
(Groves built the Pentagon, and ran the Manhattan project which
developed the first nuclear weapons during WWII.)
Interesting tid-bit of history.
John
BTW, Grace Hopper-the grand lady of computing-did not write the first
working computer program. She wrote the first business program. The
distinction of writing the first working computer program belongs to
none other than John Von Neumann, (who invented the modern computer-we
still refer to modern computers as Von Neumann architectures,) who
wrote a merge sort to test the first computer, the ENIAC. The merge
sort is still a mainstay of computer science, to this day, (when your
computer sorts e-mail, by date and time, it uses a merge sort.)
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From: root@.johncon.com
To: john@email.johncon.com
Subject: Reminders for Friday, March 30, 2001
Date: 30 Mar 2001 08:05:01 -0000
Reminders for Friday, 30th March, 2001 (today):
Daylight Savings Time - DST starts in 2 days' time
Sunrise 05:58, Sunset 18:27, Moon 0.35 (Increasing)
________________________ On This Day, Mar 30 ... ________________________
15th Amendment passes, guarantees right to vote regardless of race. (1870)
A Sicilian woman of Palermo was sexually assaulted by a French soldier while on her way to evening prayers. The people of Palermo attacked all the French in town not sparing any and took the garrison of 8000 French beginning the successful revolt know as the Sicilian Vespers Revolt. (1282)
A directive from Washington decrees that suits will be made without trouser cuffs, pleats and patch pockets until the end of the war. (1942)
Alaska purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, 1867
Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to make solo crossing of the Atlantic. (1932)
Beau Brummel, man of fashion, dies (1840)
Da Nang falls to the North Vietnamese (1975)
Eric Clapton is born in Surrey, England, 1945
Eric Clapton, rock musician, born (Surrey, England, 1945)
Five rings around Uranus discovered (1977)
Five rings around Uranus discovered, 1977
Francisco Jose de Goya born, 1746
Francisco Jose de Goya, painter, born in Spain (1746)
Hinckley shoots President Reagan but only wounds him (1981)
James Cagney, the actor, dies (1986)
Patent granted to Hyman Lipman for a pencil with an ERASER (1853)
Pencil with eraser patented, 1858
Russia sold Alaska to the U.S. (1867)
Sean O'Casey born, 1880
Sean O'Casey, Irish playwright, is born (1880)
Sir John Hawkins, wrote 1st history of music in English (1719)
The 15th amendment, black suffrage, proclaimed (1870)
UNIVAC I turned over to the Bureau of the Census. (1962)
Vincent Van Gogh born, 1853
Vincent Van Gogh, painter, born in the Netherlands (1853)
Warren Beatty, actor, is born (1937)
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John Conover, john@email.johncon.com, http://www.johncon.com/