Evening star., 1950-06-21
New Computing Device
Seen Ending Broin Labor
Capable OF All Mental Jobs
Except Original Thought
BY Themes R. Henry

by Thomos R. Henry
The end of brain labor Is on the
horizon.
This was the prediction Of DR.. Edward
U. Condor. director Of the United States
Bureau Of Standards. with the unveiling
Of the worlds most advanced computing
machine which potentially Is capable Of
all brain jobs except original thought.
It can add. subtract. multiply. divide.
and extract square roots in q minute
fraction Of the time required by any hu-
man calculator. Its operations are geared
to q precision Of Q hundred millionth Of
q second. All the arithmetic operations
can be accomplished with more or less
efiiciency by previous machines. such aS
the great ENIAC at the Army's ordnance
proving grounds at Aberdeen, Md. But
the Bureaus SEAC also Is capable OF
making comparisons. such as are re-
auired in arranging numbers according
to their order Of magnitude. II has some
capacity for solving problems In logic.
1t foreshadows machines which may be
able to translate foreign languages.
Pick and Shovel Of Mind.
All these tasks are pick and shovel
work Of the mind. and actually require
no real thinking. Yet they probably
constitute 90 per cent of all brain work"
in the world. Machines Of the SEAC class
promise to free man Of these burdens
which. in DR.. Condon's comparison. are
like the rowing Of ships by galley slaves.
The great development Of calculating
machines came late In the war. reach
ing q climax in the Army's ENIAC, de-
veloped at the University Of PENNSYLVANIA,
The present machine was described by
DR.. Samuel Alexander Of the Bureau
Stan. who has directed It's development
as "a great-grandchild Of the ENIAC,"
representing q new order OF machine
brain work.
Probably the greatest single develop
ment is in memory" For q complicated
calculation. for example, the ENIAC
could remember" ten figures. II could
extract the square roots Of ten figures,
store up the result Of each computation,
and then add the ten square roots. The
SEAC can remember 500 figures.
The older machines have worked large
ly with vacuum tubes. The new calcula-
tor cuts these to q minimum and oper-
ates instead with so-called "germanium
diodes." These are crystals quite similar
to those used in the old crystal receiv.
ing sets. but about ten-fold more eficient.
The tubes used are Of q special type.
practically guaranteed not to 60 bad for
periods Of months.
Uses Electronic Pulses.
The machine operates with electronio
pulses, at the rate Of O million q second,
Simple addition or subtraction Of eleven
digit numbers takes only so millionths
Of a second. Actually little longer time
Is required to, first, search for the right
numbers In Its memory and. then. return
them to memory again. There they will
remain essentially forever, until there In
some occasion to use them.
A particular problem cited Is one Of
interest chiefly In pure mathematics-th
finding Of the factors Of any number
UP to 00.000. 900 900. The factors are
the numbers by which q given number
can be divided. One number was o..
999 ,999.977. 1t required the machine 80
minutes to determine that this number
was not divisible by any other number
except one. This job required 80, 900 trial
divisions. An expert with an adding ma
chine working eight hours O day could
have done the same In about two months,
This particular machine was built for
the Air Force. This operates, aside from
its purely operational functions, like an
enormous business enterprise. The
amount Of routine calculation required
in procuring supplies. estimating costs,
hiring labor, etc. is stupendous. Nearly
all OF this now will be taken over by
the machine. 1t is planned TO keep It in
operation "a hours each day. It could
do the same job for an automobile manu-.
facturer or-which is even more compli.
cated-for q big department store which
must keep credit accounts, keep track of
sales. etc. With Q little alteration Il
would be possible to use the machine
for almost any accounting or estimat.
ing problem.
Line Of Development.
The actual line Of future development
DR.. Condor believes. will be the con.
struction Of large number Of specialized
machines, each primarily adapted to a
single type Of problems. One is nov
under construction for the Army Map
Service. It's job will be to make thu
complicated calculations necessary 10
translate photographs into maps.
The human brain, DR.. Condor be.
Heves, will be set free by this type Of
machine to devote itself to constructive
thinking. There Is 50 little Of this
constructive thinking to keep brains busy
that they are likely to get rusty.
Already machines are being proposed
whose only function will be mental ex-
ercise. just as machines have been con.
structed for physical exercise. One pro.
posal Is machine which will play chess.
The SEAC admittedly has room for
enormous improvements without much
change Of design. One Of the bad features
Is the time taken to print its results.
This can be speeded 1o0-fold by photo
GRAPHIC developments now under con.
sideratlon.