The Almanac, Vol. Experts predicted then that the United States might eventually need no more than six of the huge computers, mainly to chart tides and to perform other such repetitive, mind-numbing tasks. Those experts were proven wrong, of course, by the computer revolution launched 50 years ago at 33rd and Walnut Streets. But in the 1940s, even the most-farsighted scientists did not foresee the extent to which computers would dominate practically every facet of modern society.
Computer chips are in such unexpected tools as the kitchen blender and the carpenter's level.
There is no escaping their influence. The event will also be seen at the city's Convention Center via a remote broadcast. Its 18,000 vacuum tubes radiated so much heat that industrial cooling fans were needed to keep its circuitry from melting. The exhibit is scheduled to be shown during the spring semester in Van Pelt Library's Special Collections display area on the sixth floor. The University also will recreate world-class symposia modeled after the famed 1946 Moore School summer symposia, which historians regard as seminal in the development and rapid growth of the modern computing industry.