ITEM DETAILS

Philadelphia: The Franklin Institute 1931. Hard Cover. First Edition. [2-volume title], 816 pages. We offer here the entire Volume 212 of the Journal of the Franklin Institute, Nos 1267-1272, July-December 1931. An exlibrary bound in buckram with gold stamped lettering on the spine panel, institutional bookplate, library pocket and check-out sheet in rear, and several institutional stamps and notations internally. Includes the article highlighted here, Vannevar Bush's 'The Differential Analyzer. A New Machine for Solving Differential Equations' found on pages 447-488. This article is the most heavily read article in the volume exhibiting has staining, thumbing, edge tears, an old tape repair (page 473) and several pages with substantial new archival tape repairs from tears to the paper on pages 461-2,, 463-4, 481 and 487-8 to stabilize larger tears that extended into the text block. This seems almost appropriate given that this was an MIT Library copy (properly deaccessioned), the very institution that Vannevar Bush was at when this article was submitted. It no doubt it generated much interest as a result (the machine discussed was actually at MIT) and was much read both by colleagues and students interested in this early topic. There are some pencilled notes in an unknown hand in the article. The article contains 21 figures, including 9 photographs of portions of the machine (unlike Babbage's early designs for calculators, this design was actually built and in service at MIT). The article goes on to detail the mechanical challenges, underlying philosophy, and methods used by the device. Vannevar Bush 'was MIT’s first Vice President and Dean of Engineering from 1932-1939. While at MIT he invented the differential analyzer, an analog device that was the most powerful computing machine prior to the electronic digital computer...The differential analyzer proved so useful that copies were built at the University of Pennsylvania, the General Electric Plant in Schenectady, New York, and the Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground...' (see Origins of Cyberspace 244). This volume also includes articles by Zworykin on photocell theory and practice, earthquakes, the bartol research foundation and many other articles. A nice addition to any collection of work on early computing. Very Good.

[Book #18712]