Engineering Research Associates, commonly known as ERA, was a pioneering computer firm from the 1950s. The 1950s Decade refers to the years of 1950 to 1959 inclusive They became famous for their numerical computers, but as the market expanded they became better known for their drum memory systems. Drum memory is a magnetic Data storage device and was an early form of Computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s invented by Gustav Tauschek They were eventually purchased by Remington Rand and merged into their UNIVAC department. Remington Rand (1927–1955 was an early American Computer manufacturer best known as the original maker of the UNIVAC I, and now part of Unisys UNIVAC serves as the catch-all name for the American manufacturers of the lines of mainframe computers by that name which through mergers and acquisitions underwent Many of the company founders later left to form Control Data Corporation. Control Data Corporation (CDC, was one of the pioneering Supercomputer firms
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Wartime Origins of ERA
The ERA team started as a group of scientists and engineers working for the US Navy during WWII on code-breaking, a division known as the Communications Supplementary Activity - Washington (CSAW). World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Cryptography (or cryptology; from Greek grc κρυπτός kryptos, "hidden secret" and grc γράφω gráphō, "I write" After the war budgets were cut for most military projects, including CSAW. Joseph Wenger of the Navy's cryptoanalytic group was particularly worried that the CSAW team would spread to various companies and the Navy would lose their ability to quickly design new machines.
Post-War Organization
Wenger and two members of the CSAW team, William Norris and Howard Engstrom, started looking for investors interested in supporting the development of a new computer company. William Charles Norris ( July 14, 1911 near Red Cloud Nebraska &ndash August 21, 2006) was the pioneering CEO of Their only real lead, at Kuhn, Loeb & Co., eventually fell through. Kuhn Loeb & Co was an investment bank founded in 1867 by Abraham Kuhn and Solomon Loeb. They then met John Parker, an investment banker who had run a Chase Aircraft glider subsidiary, Northwest Aeronautical Corporation (NAC), in St. Paul, Minnesota. Chase Aircraft Company was started in 1943 in New York City to build Gliders for the US Army Air Force. Terminology A "glider" is an unpowered Aircraft. The most common types of glider are today used for sporting purposes Saint Paul ( abbreviated St Paul) is the capital and second most populous city in the U NAC was in the process of shutting down as the war ended most contracts, and he was looking for new projects to keep the factory running. Parker was told nothing about the work the team would do, but after being visited by a series of increasingly high ranking naval officers culminating with James Forrestal, he knew "something" was up and decided to give it a try. James Vincent Forrestal ( February 15, 1892 &ndash May 22, 1949) was a United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United Norris headed up the new team, now known as ERA, moving to the NAC factory in 1946.
Early Years
During the "early" years the company took on any engineering work that came their way, but were generally kept in business developing new code-breaking machines for the Navy. Most of the machines were custom-built to crack a specific code, and increasingly used drum memory in order to store the intercepted messages to be studied. Drum memory is a magnetic Data storage device and was an early form of Computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s invented by Gustav Tauschek To ensure secrecy, the factory was declared to be a Navy Reserve base, and armed guards were posted at the entrance. The United States Navy Reserve, until 2005 known as the United States Naval Reserve, is the reserve component of the United States Navy.
Goldberg and Demon Codebreakers
Their first machine, Goldberg, completed in 1947, used a crude drum made by gluing magnetic tape to the surface of a large metal cylinder that could be spun at 50 RPM for reading (and much slower for writing). Magnetic tape is a medium for Magnetic recording generally consisting of a thin magnetizable coating on a long and narrow strip of Plastic. Over the next few years, the drum memory systems increased in capacity and speed, along with the paper tape readers needed to feed the data onto the drums. Punched tape or paper tape is a largely obsolete form of Data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data They later ended up in a major patent fight with Technitrol Engineering, who introduced a drum memory of their own in 1952.
One of the follow-on machines, Demon, was built to crack a specific Soviet code. In 1949 the code was changed, rendering the machine useless. One of ERA's engineers, James Pendergrass, had attended a series of lectures at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, and became convinced the only lasting solution to the code breaking problem was a computer that could be quickly re-programmed to work on different tasks. Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania came into existence as a result of an endowment from Alfred Fitler Moore on June 4, 1923 The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn) is a private University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. In 1947 the Navy awarded ERA a contract, "Task 13", to develop what was destined to be the first stored program computer. The von Neumann architecture is a design model for a stored-program Digital computer that uses a processing unit and a single separate storage structure The machine, known as the Atlas, used drum memory and was delivered in 1950. Drum memory is a magnetic Data storage device and was an early form of Computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s invented by Gustav Tauschek ERA then started to sell it commercially as the ERA 1101, 1101 being binary for 13. The UNIVAC 1101, or ERA 1101, was a Computer system designed by Engineering Research Associates (ERA and built by the Remington Rand corporation Even before delivery of the Atlas, the Navy asked for a more powerful machine using both Williams tubes and drum memory, a machine known as the Atlas II. The Williams tube or the Williams-Kilburn tube (after inventors Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn) developed about 1946 or 1947 Work began in 1950 and the completed Atlas II was delivered to the still-secret NSA in September 1953. The National Security Agency/ Central Security Service ( NSA/CSS) is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States government Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
Legal Troubles and the Remington Rand Acquisition
ERA looked to selling similar machines to a number of customers, but at about this time they became embroiled in a lengthy series of political maneuvering in Washington. Drew Pearson's Washington Merry-Go-Round claimed that the founding of ERA was a conflict of interest for Norris and Engstrom because they had used their war-time government connections to set up a company for their own profit. The resulting legal fight left the company drained, both financially and emotionally. In 1952 they were purchased by Remington Rand, largely as a result of these problems.
Remington Rand already had a computing division however, after they had purchased the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1950. For a time the two companies operated as independent units within Remington, with ERA focusing on scientific and military customers, while Eckert-Mauchly's UNIVACs were sold to business customers. This is a list of UNIVAC products. The Remington Rand years (1950 to 1955 Calculating devices UNIVAC 60 UNIVAC However, in 1955 Remington merged with Sperry Corporation to become Sperry Rand. Sperry Corporation (1910-1986 was a major American equipment and Electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century Sperry Corporation (1910-1986 was a major American equipment and Electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century Both ERA and Eckert-Mauchly were folded into a single division as Sperry-UNIVAC. Much of ERA's work was dropped, while their drum technology was used in newer UNIVAC machines. A number of employees were not happy with this move and decamped to form Control Data Corporation under the leadership of Norris. Control Data Corporation (CDC, was one of the pioneering Supercomputer firms Also among the staff of young engineers at ERA was Seymour Cray, who went on to design supercomputers and create Cray Computers. Seymour Roger Cray ( September 28, 1925 – October 5, 1996) was a U A supercomputer is a Computer that is at the frontline of processing capacity particularly speed of calculation (at the time of its introduction Cray Inc ( is a Supercomputer manufacturer based in Seattle Washington.
But the core of the ERA team lived on. Eventually they were moved to a new research division where they had considerably more freedom. They worked primarily on computing systems for military use, and they pioneered a number of early command and control and guidance systems for ICBMs and satellites. There they were known as the Military Division, which was later renamed the Aerospace Division.
The 'New' ERA
In the late 1970s, a number of Rand employees purchased the ERA name and started a small government contracting firm. In 1989, the "new" ERA became a wholly owned subsidiary of E-Systems. A subsidiary, in business matters is an entity that is controlled by a bigger and more powerful entity Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems (RIIS IIS is a business of Raytheon Company. In 1995, it was merged into the Melpar division of its parent and the name once again disappeared. Melpar, Inc was a company and is now a division that specializes in Military and Civilian Government contracts in electronics chemistry Bio-medicine
References
- Erwin Tomash and Arnold A. Cohen, "The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Research Associates, Inc. 1945-1955," Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 1, No. 2, Oct. 1979.
- David Lundstrom, A Few Good Men from Univac, 1987, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-62075-8
External links
- Oral history interview with Erwin Tomash at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with William Norris at the Charles Babbage Institute focuses on his ERA years and formation of CDC
- Oral history interview with Willis K. Drake at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with Arnold A. Cohen at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with Frank C. Mullaney at the Charles Babbage Institute - discusses Engineering Research Associates (ERA), especially the Atlas (ERA 1101) computer, and successors; John L. The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing Hill; the acquisition of ERA by Remington Rand, J. Presper Eckert, and the formation of Control Data Corporation
- Oral history interview with James E. Thornton at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with John Lindsay Hill at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with Edward C. Svendsen at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Oral history interview with Arnold J. Ryden at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Records of the company at the Hagley Museum and Library
- Records of ERA-Remington Rand-Sperry Rand at the Charles Babbage Institute
- William C. Norris Papers, 1946-1998 at the Charles Babbage Institute
- Control Data Corporation Records, 1946-1991 at the Charles Babbage Institute
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