The monthly articles, books, magazine articles, and slide
shows linked hereunder relate bits or bytes of the ERA and Legacy
Company activities, experiences, and products.
Our VIP Club Legacy Committee welcomes
your stories which mention computer based systems developed by ERA,
UNIVAC, ..., especially those with Twin Cities content. When
you write it; we will format, insert links to related information, then post it in the Legacy
Anthology chapter of most relevance. Thanks, LABenson - Editor.
This human-computer interaction typist was captured from the internet, thanks to
anonymous.
Please use your browser's "Ctrl F" find function. To search the entire site; the Home page, the Contacts & Links page, and our Legacy Anthology chapter have a focused Google search box.
If you have one or more articles, send them to webmaster@vipclubmn.org or to la.gj.benson@comcast.net.
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 inquue 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 | |
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 | Nodin 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 commerating ERA's influence on Minnesota. |
2016 | A History of the Computer Industry: From Relay Computers to the IBM PC | Stephen Lindfors |
paperback via Amazon.com | 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. http://www.amazon.com/History-Computer-Industry-Relay-Computers/dp/1514690802/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462625198&sr=8-3&keywords=A+History+of+the+Computer+Industry |
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 indstry, 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 trough 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). | |
??? | 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. |
While developing our Legacy Anthology, the committee has encounter some papers that have 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 Assocoates (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." |
Chapter 100 edited 11/30/2024.
2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.
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.