Part 1

COMPUTERS—THE MACHINES WE THINK WITH

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Computers—

THE MACHINES WE THINK WITH

D. S. HALACY, JR.

HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, EVANSTON, AND LONDON

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COMPUTERS—THE MACHINES WE THINK WITH. Copyright © 1962, by Daniel S. Halacy, Jr. Printed in the United States of America. All rights in this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y.

Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-14564

F-S

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Contents

1. Computers—The Machines We Think With 1

2. The Computer’s Past 18

3. How Computers Work 48

4. Computer Cousins—Analog and Digital 72

5. The Binary Boolean Bit 96

6. The Electronic Brain 121

7. Uncle Sam’s Computers 147

8. The Computer in Business and Industry 171

9. The Computer and Automation 201

10. The Academic Computer 219

11. The Road Ahead 251

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COMPUTERS—THE MACHINES WE THINK WITH

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1: Computers—The Machines We Think With

While you are reading this sentence, an electronic computer is performing 3 million mathematical operations! Before you read this page, another computer could translate it and several others into a foreign language. Electronic “brains” are taking over chores that include the calculation of everything from automobile parking fees to zero hour for space missile launchings.