Books Etc., Chapter 9

    Over our two decades we have identified many books, etc. that tell bits and pieces of the ERA, UNIVAC, Sperry, and Unisys history.  These are listed hereunder, we welcome contributions.

1.0 Books

Each of the following books mentions ERA or UNIVAC or Remington Rand or Sperry or Unisys while discussing computer history aspects. Many of these are available at the Charles Babbage Institute on the U of MN West Bank campus and a few are at the Lawshe Memorial Museum reading room.

Year	Title	Author	Publisher	Notes
1950	High Speed Computing Devices	Engineering Research Associates, Inc.	McGraw-Hill	1983 Reprint Series for the History of Computing by Tomash Publishers. A digital version is available from the Bit Saver's web site, linked from our backup convenience folder.
1956	Large Scale Digital Computers, An Annotated Bibliography	[saved from the Bit Savers site]	Remington Rand Univac	This bibliography is intended for those who wish to inquire into aspects of the computer field which are unfamiliar. To accomplish this it has been made relatively comprehensive in the listing of books and articles which give serious but not highly technical treatment of subjects such as general theory of digital computer design and operation, and the business and scientific. applications of these machines.
1959	UNIVAC Products - St Paul A Handbook of Major Products Designed, Developed, and Manufactured at ST. PAUL 16, MINNESOTA 1947 to 1959	Product Planning Division	Remington Rand Univac December 31, 1959	Don Weidenbach donated his copy of this book to the Legacy Committee. The Committee subsequently donated the book to the Charles Babbage Institute. A committee member scanned the book's pages and used character recognition software to create a docx file and a pdf file on a disc which is donated to the Lawshe Memorial Museum. Lowell updated the original doc file by fixing the character recognition errors and eliminating white space of pages between sections. Curt Christensen's copy is at the Lawshe Memorial Museum. The pdf version is linked here.
1960	A History of Sperry Rand Corporation	Staff	Sperry Rand Publications Department
1964	Case Study of the Development of the Naval Tactical Data Systems	R. W. Graf, Research Associate	United Research Inc., Cambridge, MA	A reference copy of this document is saved on our URL for researchers.
1976	HISTORY OF THE UYK-20(V) DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM ACQUISITION AND ITS IMPACT ON TACTICAL SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT	Robert Richardson Joyce	Naval Postgraduate School Monterey CA	NPS-36J076091, Thanks to George Grey for the pdf file.
1979	From Dits to Bits	Herman Lukoff	Robotics Press	This has early computer development from a Blue Bell employee perspective.
1979	Land of the Giants, A History of Minnesota Business	Don W. Larson	Dorn Books 7101 York Ave. S	Seven pages scanned for their ERA and CDC origination history  - Chapter 11, The Computer Age
1986	Engineering Research Associates, The Wellspring of Minnesota's Computer Industry	Communications Department, St. Paul Minnesota	Sperry	Booklet created in commemoration of ERA's 40th anniversary. A scanned electronic copy was provided by Michael Lins, January 6, 2016. Mike's father, Ray Lins, worked in plant 1 and his uncle Stan Lins worked in plant 8.
1987	A Few Good Men from UNIVAC	David E. Lundstrom	MIT Press; Cambridge, MA	1997 re-print by Replica Books; Bridgewater, NJ - Mr. Lundstrom was a UNIVAC employee then a Control Data Employee.
1987	When Computers Went to Sea - The Digitization of the United States Navy	Capt. David L. Boslaugh	IEEE Press Order #BP00024	Chapter 2 of this book is on line at http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/First-Hand:The_Navy_Codebreakers_and_Their_Digital_Computers_-_Chapter_2_of_the_Story_of_the_Naval_Tactical_Data_System
1990	History and Evolution of 1100/2200 Mainframe Technology	Richard J. Petschauer	Copyright© 1990 Unisys Corporation Printed in U S America	This paper was prepared in recognition of the 35th anniversary of USE inc. and was presented at the Fall 1990 Conference in Seattle, Washington.
1996	Computer: A History of the Information Machine	Martin Cambell-Kelly and William Aspray	Basic Books
1998	A Treasury of Minnesota Tales	Web Garrison	Rutledge Hill	Section 24, pages 152->157 tells of Remington Rand UNIVAC employee David Karpeles.
1999	Magnetic Recording - the First 100 Years	Eric d. Daniel, C. Denis Mee, & Mark H. Clark	IEEE 3 Park Avenue, NY, NY 10016-5997	ISBN 0-7803-4709-9  - Chapter 16 Data Storage on Drums cites the work of Dr. Sidney M. Rubens
2002?	"It Wasn't all Magic: The Early Struggle to Automate Cryptanalysis 1930s- 1960s"	Colin Burke,	Center for Cryptology History, National Security Agency, 2002.	Includes the history of Engineering Research Associates, and some history on CDC, IBM, NCR, Raytheon, and Remington-Rand.
2005	Computers and Commerce: A study of Technology and Management at Eckert Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946-1957	Dr. A. L. Norberg, Retired CBI Director	MIT Press	Dr. Norberg was the original director of the Charles Babbage Institute at the U of MN, also an initial advisor of the Club's advisory committee.
2008	A History of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering 1888-2008	Edited by James R. Leger	University of Minnesota, Minneapolis	Pages 182 through 189 discuss ERA and computer pioneering.
2008	Unisys Computers: An Introductory History.	George T. Gray and Ronald Q. Smith		The companies that are encompassed within Unisys were among the pioneers in the field. They rank just behind IBM in the impact they had in the early years of the computer industry. Unisys was formed in 1986 by the merger of Burroughs and Sperry, two companies that had themselves grown through acquisitions and mergers. The first two U.S. companies to build a computer, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and Engineering Research Associates, were both acquired by Remington Rand Corporation (in 1950 and 1951) which, in turn, merged with Sperry in 1956 to become Sperry Rand Corporation.
2008	The Secret in Building 26, The untold story of America's ultra war against the u-boat enigma codes	Jim DeBrosse and Colin Burke		This book relates the WWII activities of William 'Bill' Norris, Ralph Meader, and Howard Engstrom who were three of the four founders of ERA.
2009	"The Cello Maker" and other stories of the working man.	David P. Anderson	Chandelle Press, second edition	The sixteenth short story in this book is "The Invention of Voice Mail", our July 2007 Article for the Month.  This article mentions 'word spotting' for an agency. Not mentioned therein is that Lowell Benson's non-English speech skills were used as examples of spotting much more than just American words.
2013	Digital State, The Story of Minnesota's Computer Industry	Dr. Tom Misa	University of Minnesota  Press	Drawing on rare archival documents, photographs, and a wealth of oral histories, Digital State unveils the remarkable story of computer development in the heartland after World War II. These decades found corporations—concentrated in large part in Minnesota—designing state-of-the-art mainframe technologies, revolutionizing new methods of magnetic data storage, and, for the first time, truly integrating software and hardware into valuable products for the American government and public. Minnesota-based companies such as Engineering Research Associates, Univac, Control Data, Cray Research, Honeywell, and IBM Rochester were major international players and together formed an unrivaled epicenter advancing digital technologies. These companies not only brought vibrant economic growth to Minnesota, they nurtured the state’s present-day medical device and software industries and possibly even tomorrow’s nanotechnology. Mr. Benson has penned an overview of this book,
2014	Generation of Wealth, The rise of Control Data and how it inspired an era of innovation and investment in the Upper Midwest	Donald M. Hall	Nordin Press 5114 Cedar Lake Road, Minneapolis MN  55416	The TIMELINE before the Contents page begins with 1945, World War II ends; 1946, Engineering Research Associates (ERA) formed; ...; and ends with 2009, Medtronic and St. Jude are industry leaders.   In between these dates; the author blends innovative people, company histories, stock prices, and personal research into a fascinating, factual story of Control Data Corporation and the spin off of Cray et al' plus the evolution of the Medical Technology industry in Minnesota. BTW, LABenson reviewed Don's draft to assure correctness of the ERA Legacy information.  Mr. Hall subsequently sponsored a plaque commemorating ERA's influence on Minnesota.
2016	A History of the Computer Industry: From Relay Computers to the IBM PC	Stephen Lindfors	paperback via Amazon.	The book is a short history of the computer industry, starting with relay computers and ending with the IBM PC, introduced in 1981. The book includes two chapters about important people in the industry, plus a glossary, a bibliography, an index and footnotes. BTW, LABenson reviewed the draft in 2013 for accuracy relative to ERA Legacy information. https://www.amazon.com
2017	Making it work: A History of the Computer Services Industry	Jeffrey R. Yost	MIT Press	Editing by William Asprey and Thomas J. Misa. "The computer consulting sector was the origin of the computer services industry, and Arthur Andersen and Company's Administrative Services Division was probably the first computer consulting enterprise." "This book analyzes the complex, rapidly evolving, and highly influential computer/IT services industry through a series of company case studies." UNIVAC/Unisys is not a chapter of this book, however are mentioned at several places. Interestingly, the book shows the transition into 'Cloud' based services by several firms. [lab]
2017	Led by the Spirit of Truth, My Life Story	Gerald Ivar Williams		This 220 page book is reduced to an 8 page synopsis, SatisfyingInventions.pdf (vipclubmn.org).
2022	Bootstrap Entrepreneur, a business entrepreneur.	John Miller and Christina Schweighofer		In the early 1970s, John Miller bootstrapped a tech company on a remote Native American reservation in his home state, North Dakota. He started with no capital, his only product was eventually replaced by the silicon chip. 30 years later, Miller sold the company for 18 million dollars. His mini-bio is at https://vipclubmn.org/People5.html#Miller
???	Achieving Accuracy: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles	Marshall McMurran		There are references to many Univac computers including 1824, ADD 1000, Athena, Nike-X CLC, Target Intercept Computer (GPDC), NTDS, etc.
2024	The Invention of Voice Mail and other brief stories	David Andersen		A summary is in work as of 12/2024.

2.0 Magazine Articles

• 1978 - From "Communications of the ACM January 1978", pages 24-43 - Evolution of the UNIVAC 1100 Series [submitted by article author Phil Hartley, scanned by Ron Q. Smith)
• 1979 - IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 1 No 2 October 1979, The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Research Associates, Inc. 1946-1955: Authors Erwin Tomash and Arnold A. Cohen. 
• 1998 - EEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 20, No. 3, Sperry Rand’s Transistor Computers, July-September 1998
• 2001 - IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 23, No. 1, January-March 2001 - Sperry Rand’s Third-Generation Computers,
• 2001 - From "The Link", Bulletin of the National Cryptology Museum Foundation, Inc. Volume 4, Number 1 - Spring 2001  ATLAS AND THE EARLY DAYS OF COMPUTERS By Harlan Snyder, LCDR USNR, Ret. [submitted by Don Weidenbach]
• 2005 - Minnesota Monthly as “Original Geeks”, with text by Jim Lenfestey and Photos by Erik More, - July 2005.
• 2006 - IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 28 Number 3 July-September 2006 - MESM and the Beginning of the Computer Era in the Soviet Union and Strela-1, the First Soviet Computer: Political Success and Technological Failure. {Editor's note: Their first stored program computer went into service in December, 1951 - designed by Lebedev from Kiev.}
• 2007 - IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 29 Number 4 October-December 2007 - Arthur Norberg, the Charles Babbage Institute, and the History of Computing.
• 2013 - CBI Newsletter, Vol. 35, No. 2, fall 2013: Page 11, A New Computer History Exhibit
• 2013 - Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame; Seymour Cray was recognized as the father of super computing. 
• 2022 - From Star Tribune November 25, 2022: Curious Minnesota by Evan Ramstad: Minnesota companies once dominated the supercomputer industry. What happened? Control Data, Univac and Cray Research designed some of the world's fastest computers. But their success didn't last.
• 2023 - From "Ramsey County History, Volume 58 - Number 2 - Summer 2023 - pages 34 and 35": Honoring WWII Code breakers and the Founding of Engineering Research Associates. Authors; Dave Beal, Lowell Benson, Don Hall, Jay Pfaender, and Chad Roberts.
• 2026 - A shadowbox relocation tidbit by Kris Wilmunen printed in the Unisys internal newsletter for the Enterprise Computing Solutions business unit, Documents/RoundupShadowBoxArticle.pdf.

3.0 Unpublished

While developing our Legacy Anthology, the committee has encounter some papers that had not been available in the public domain.

Number, date	Author	Title	Notes
2016	John M. Lindley	" Born of a Wartime Necessity" From Combat Gliders to Computers in Minnesota, 1941-1946	This manuscript was submitted under Grant Number 1510-07526 of the Minnesota Historical Society’s Historical and Cultural Heritage Grants Program. It provides the history of Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation (NAC) and its post war transformation to Engineering Research Associates' (ERA). The focus of this book is on the human side of those involved with building the gliders at the Northwestern Aeronautical Corporation.  Mr. Lindley has 244 references to literary works of others.
3/23/79	George A. Champine, PhD.	Chapter 3 - Engineering Research Associates	The technological history of Sperry Univac is being documented in a book which will be titled Sperry Univac - "The First Computer Company."  Found in the HAGLEY museum archives.
A523682, A523696	George Gray has extracted several paragraphs	of NSA use during the 60s and 70s, read UNIVAC computers .	CENTER FOR CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, 1995 - mentions the CP-818, Univac 490, UNIVAC 494, Honeywell 316, and IBM 360.  Chapter 16, Cryptology and the Watergate era - mentions UNIVAC 494, and UNIVAC 1108s' Chapter 10, SIGINT in Crisis, 1967-69 - mentions UNIVAC 494.
A60163, 1952	Samuel Snyder	Planning for ATLAS II	Declassified 01-23-2014: 3. Programmer Training: The training of a number of programmers is a project which should be be initiated soon. Programmers with training on both ATLAS I and ABNER shOUld be able to learn ATLAS II rapidly. Programmers with experience on only one machine will have to learn the different techniques "borrowed" from the other.
A60166, 1952	Friedman	Analytical Machine Employment	Declassified 01-23-2014: Inspector General report re' staff/people for ERA systems as well as IBM equipment.
A60928, 1953	Wheatley	Cryptanalytic Machines in NSA	Declassified 06-16-2014: The first installment is complete on the job of writing a brief description of all analytic machinery in the Agency, whether past, present Gr projected. It includes 51 equipments, and later installments will add approximately 150 more machines, plus photographs of many of the equipments.
A656701, 1954	Friedman	Machines in the Service of Cryptanalysis	Declassifications date unknown: This discusses several ERA machines and IBM equipment, i.e. "Very few of us know as a matter of personal experience that in 1932 the Navy Security Group began using standard IBM accounting machines.  Two years later the Army obtained similar machines to assist in the arduous task of preparing code books.
NSA 6586784, 1964	Samuel Snyder	History of NSA General Purpose Electronic Digital Computers	Originally released under NSA FOIA 41023, 2/9/2004  Requested and re-released under Mandatory  Declassification Review in June 2009.  In addition to half-a-dozen ERA machines, this paper identifies several IBM equipments, two Control data machines and the UNIVAC 490.
NSA 6586785		NSA's Key Role in Major Developments in Computer Science	Declassified on 07-19-2017: "In 1950 the Navy and industry working together produced the first real general-purpose computer for the government. Built by Electronic Research Associates (ERA), a company headed by Howard Engstrom, who himself had worked on the Navy Bombe during the war, it was called ATIAS. This machine cost nearly $1 million, used 2,700 vacuum tubes, and relied on drum memory technology. One of ATLAS's greatest assignments was to attack iso-logs in messages codenamed VENONA, intercepts of Soviet espionage communications during the height of World War II." Also discusses ERA's NOMAD, BOGART, and Howard Engstrom.  It mentions UNIVAC 490, and 1108s plus CDC and Cray equipment.

 

Chapter 9 edited 6/6/2026.

In this Chapter

1.0 Books Listing

2.0 Magazine Articles

3.0 Unpublished

You may need a *.pdf reader to view these documents - click then follow directions to install their latest reader for your operating system.

 Note: The bit-savers web site ( http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/) has over 32,000 documents including technical manuals, photos, and documents from some ERA/UNIVAC/ Sperry/Unisys equipment. We have copied and linked some of these from our computer chapters for researching ease. 

Chapter 9 edited 5/26/2026.