Computer History and Militarism:
World War Two (1933-1949)

1933

-> Third Reich develops Telex technology: an early messaging network system that used routed messages through modified telephone lines.


1939

-> Alan Turing theorizes a hypothetical computing device, which he would later name ACE ( (Automatic Computing Engine), a technology that predated the modern computer, built in 1945.

Image curtesy of computerhistory.org

Image curtesy of Pilot ACE (Science Museum, London).

-> Bell Laboratories are developing complex calculators

1941

-> Konrad Zuse completed the Z3, an early computer built used for aerodynamic calculations

-> Alan Turing and Harold Keen build the Bombe, to decrypt Enigma German military communications.

1942

-> Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and grad student Clifford Berry from Iowa State University. Their Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic automatic digital computer, but was not programmable. It was the first system to use vacuum tubes to perform arithmetic calculations.

1943

-> The development of Colossus, inspired by Turing work on the Bombe. Led by telephone engineer Tommy Flowers based on the plans of mathematician Max Newman, Colossus was a set of computers developed by UK codebreakers to intercept the Lorenz cipher (high-level German army messages.) This was the first programmable, electronic digital computer

A reproduction of the Z3 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Image curtesy of Deutsches Museum.

A Colossus Mark 2 codebreaking computer being operated by Dorothy Du Boisson (left) and Elsie Booker (right), 1943. Image curtesy of the National Archives (UK).

1951

-> The US Navy approaches MIT to build a flight simulator in 1946, which leads to the development of the Whirlwind I, an early digital electronic computer and the first to use magnetic-core memory, which would be used in early computing technology into the 1970s. The Whirlwind led to the development of the first electronic keyboard as well, developed by Doug Ross, called the Flexowriter.

1955

-> Vacuum tubes were rendered obscolete by newly developed transistors (electrical devices that could amplify and swap electrical signals, and were far less bulky and more energy efficient than vacuum tubes). The development of this technology led to the second generation of computers, which featured printed circuit boards, and magnetic-core memory.

Doug Ross' Flexowriter. Image curtesy of the Computer History Museum, catalog number 102732973

Vacuum tubes in the first generation of computers.

Computer History and Militarism:
Cold War Computers

late 1950s

-> The development of the United states air Force’s SAGE defense system (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), was used by NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defence Command) to provide warnings in the case of a Soviet bomber attack.

1955

-> Vacuum tubes were rendered obscolete by newly developed transistors (electrical devices that could amplify and swap electrical signals, and were far less bulky and more energy efficient than vacuum tubes). The development of this technology led to the second generation of computers, which featured printed circuit boards, and magnetic-core memory.

Canadian forces monitor radar screens using the SAGE system, in what they called the Blue Room. Image curtesy of the CANADIAN FORCES MUSEUM OF AEROSPACE DEFENCE—PCN4720.

fun side note:

-> After these computer became obsolete they were often sold to Hollywood film companies and used as props in the many science fiction films produced at the time, and for decades after. The IBM AN/FSQ-7, a key component of the SAGE, has so many film and TV guest spots.

Pictured to the right: Raven uses the SAGE to measure her psychic abilities in That's So Raven, Season 1, 2003.

Cybernetics

The Ratio Club

-> By 1950, a group of young psychiatrists, psychologists, physiologists, mathematicians and engineers who referred to themselves as the Ratio Club met to discuss an emerging principle of cybernetics, the study of the similarities between the communication and feedback processes which were recognized in both biological and technological systems.

Cybernetic feedback loop graphic.

Computer music

-> By 1956 some of the earliest forms of computer music were released- with Hiller, Isaacson and Baker’s i>Illiac Suite being the first music composed using an electronic computer.

Early Computer Art

Herbert Brün, mutatis mutandis 242, 1968.

Computer Art Exhibitions (1960s)

Georg Nees, Andreaskreuz 1965. Image from compart.

Georg Nees, 8-ecke1964. Image from compart.

Computergrafik: Georg Nees

Stuttgart, Germany, 1965.

Computer-generated Pictures (Noll and Julesz)

Howard Wise Gallery, New York City, 1965.

Georg Nees

-> Georg Nees was a mathematician who worked for the Siemens AG in Erlangen Germany for most of his life

-> a pioneer of computer art and algorithm art

-> wrote the first thesis on computer art

-> used the Zuse Graphomat Z64 to write algorithms for making computer generated drawings

A. Michael Noll

-> was another major voice in early computer art

-> wrote about the computer as a creative medium

-> was invested in reproducing and reimagining artworks through the medium of the computer

Georg Nees, 8-ecke1964. Image from compart.

A. Michael Noll, Computer Composition With Lines, 1964. Image from compart.

Piet Mondrian, Composition With Lines, 1917.

Computer Animations: John Whitney (1970s)

-> built his own mechanical computer in the 1950s

-> worked at Lockheed developing high speed missile technology. His knowledge of gun aiming equipment could plot graphs, and determine movement, which became useful later in his animation work.

-> "“Computer graphic instruments are interesting for their possibilities for generating motion. In fact, there exists a vast unexplored world of movement and rhythm in abstract space which is now realizable thanks to this type of hardware.” (Whitney, 1980).

Kenneth C. Knowlton

-> also worked at Bell Labs

-> created two programming languages,

-> was invested in reproducing and reimagining artworks through the medium of the computer

Leon Harmon

-> electrical hobbyist, also works at Bell Labs in computer graphics

-> with Knowlton created the photomosaic technique and the first "computer nude,"

Art world influences