A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator

8vo (267 x 200mm), pp. [xvi], 561, [3], with 17 numbered plates (including frontispiece), text illustrations (slight toning). Publisher's dark blue cloth. A fine copy. First edition. The electromechanical Harvard Mark I was the first programmable calculating machine to produce mathematical tables, thus realizing the dream of Charles Babbage originally set out in print in 1822. Also known as the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, the Mark I was the brainchild of Howard Aiken, who first conceived of building a powerful, large-scale calculating machine in 1935 while pursuing graduate studies in physics at Harvard University. In 1937, after Aiken had become a professor of applied mathematics at Harvard's Graduate School of Engineering, he proposed his idea to a number of calculating-machine manufacturers, receiving several rejections before finally convincing IBM to undertake the project. The manual represents the work of a great many people whose efforts have been closely integrated as is necessary in the operation of large-scale calculating machines.” Provenance: Brooks J. Lockhart (signature is on the front free endpaper). Lockhart was the primary author of the Manual’s sixth chapter concerning the solution of simple problems using the Mark I. “American computing pioneer Howard H. Aiken (1900-1973) first conceived of building a powerful, large-scale calculating machine in 1935 while pursuing graduate studies in physics at Harvard University. In 1937, after Aiken had become a professor of applied mathematics at Harvard’s Graduate School of Engineering, he proposed his idea to a number of calculating-machine manufacturers, drafting a proposal for an automatic calculating machine, and receiving several rejections before finally convincing IBM to undertake the project. The project, known initially as Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), and later called the Harvard Mark I, was partly funded by money from the United States Navy; the remainder came from IBM, whose president, Thomas J. Watson, viewed the undertaking as good publicity and as a showcase for IBM''s talents. By January 1943 the machine was operational at IBM Endicott Labs under wartime security. The completed electromechanical calculating machine weighed five tons. “Construction of the Mark I was completed in early 1943, and a year later the machine was dismantled and shipped to Harvard, where it became operational in May 1944. The electromechanical machine solved addition problems in less than a second, multiplication in six seconds, and division in 12 seconds. Grace Hopper wrote some of its first programs, which ran on punched tape. “In 1946 Aiken and Grace Hopper published A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. The instruction sequences scattered throughout this volume on the Harvard Mark I were among the earliest published examples of digital computer programs. Aiken saw himself as Babbage’s intellectual successor, and in an excellent historical introduction to this technical manual he and Hopper placed the Harvard Mark I in its historical context. The computer historian Paul Ceruzzi implies as much in the following description: ‘[The Harvard Mark I] manual was a milepost that marked the state of the art of machine computation at one of its critical places: where, for the first time, machines could automatically evaluate arbitrary sequences of arithmetic operations. "The operating manual for the Mark I calculator published as Volume 1 of the Annals of the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University was written largely by Hopper, who was the chief author of chapters 1-3 and the eight appendices following chapter 6. Chapters 4 and 5 were written by Aiken and Robert Campbell, and chapter 6, containing directions for solving sample problems on the machine, was primarily the work of Brooks J. Lockhart" (historyofinformation). Bottom corner slightly bumped. In fine condition in custom clamshell box. 8½" - 11½".…