Evening star., 1955-05-07
Robot 10 Give
Weather Data
BY JACK JONAS.

Inc weather bureau unveiled
its mechanical brain yesterday
a sensitive, temperamental, stu
pid, shy leviathan. which the
forecasters hope will revolution
ize the predicting of storms and
sunny skies all over the country.
Everybody who is anybody in
the field of meteorology said it
would, anyway, as soon as fun
bling man is able to cope with it.
The brain-it doesn't like to be
photographed at work, has such
a poor memory it keeps notes,
and will work overtime at half
pay-is, technically, a stored
program, parallel, binary COM
puter."
It is set up at the new Air
Force, Navy and Weather Bu-
reau joint numerical weather
prediction unit at Suitland, Md.
Actually" a public relations
man explained to newsmen and
photographers. "the machine is
stupid. All it does is add or null
tiply numbers. But it does a fast
jop."
Adds Rapidly
Examples: 1t adds at the rate
of 10000 operations a second,
multiplies and divides at 1000
operations a second, writes IL, 500
digits second.
Anyone who was present in
the room will testify this is what
DR.. j. Won Neumann of the
Atomic Energy Commission said: !:
eve hadn't the foggiest notion
of what the outcome would be
when we began experimenting
with mechanical computation of
weather data"
But now, he added, weather
experts are joyfully optimistic.
The brain will make "numeri-
cal weather predictions" 1t will
be used at first, according to the
Weather Bureau, for forecasts
covering most of North America
Later, the forecast area will be
expanded.
The calculator is expected to
free Weather Bureau men all
over the country for considera.
ton of local weather effects
such as the influences of topog.
raphy and coast lines.
Right now, DR.. George P
Gresham, director of the All
Weather Service, explained, the
calculator takes about as Ions
to make a forecast as does the
manual method. 1t will be "some
months" he added, before the
effects of it's speed are felt.
A public relations man com.
pared it with the "horseless car.
riage" era, and said it will de.
velop, in time. into a marvel O
weather forecasting.
Photographers. before being
admitted into the room in which
the brain reigns, were cautioned
against setting off any flash
bulbs except in the specified
time between $40 pm. and SIS:
pm, when the machine woulc
be working on unimportant data
Skittish Memory
"a sudden flash might cause
it to lose its memory" they wert
told. And if that happens, il
takes two hours to go back ovel
the notes the calculator keeps tt
refresh its memory"
Newsmen and photographer
were allowed in the presenc,
only 20 minutes because. Al
someone--in the confusion i
was difficult to say who-ex'
planned:
"A lot OF people IN the room
all at once for a long time upse
the temperature and humidit
controls, and the machine goe
haywire."
The Weather Bureau said tn
machine will be able to diges
great piles of weather obeserva
ton information and come u
quickly with general forecast.
And how about weather infor
nation in Russia?" some on
asked.
I'VE already know that" Ger
Norman said. THE Russian
are very cooperative when
comes to weather data"
The mechanical brain draw
down $4,000 month on a 40
hour week basis. At the rate tn
Weather bureau is using 1t, il
take is $4,000 a month, with tn
overtime working out at abor
half the hourly rate for the AZ
hour week. The Government USE
: 1t on o rental basis.