Component, McIlroy Fluid Network Analyzer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1950
notes: label: Description
content: The safe distribution of physical entities such as electricity, water, and gas requires complex calculations – or devices that can replicate physical systems in smaller form. One such device, called a network analyzer, was proposed by the MIT engineer Vannevar Bush of MIT. Bush began work on a network analyzer for electrical systems in the 1920s, using it extensively between 1935 and about 1950. In the 1940s and 1950s, the engineer Malcolm E. McIlroy and his associates at the Standard Electric Time Company of Springfield, Massachusetts, developed and sold a network analyzer that used electronic components for use in computing the flow of fluids such as gas and water. Several parts of a McIlroy fluid network analyzer used by the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission are in the Smithsonian collections as part of accession 304368. Accession 316525 contains smaller components, which survived with the papers of Malcolm E. McIlroy. This is component resembles a showcase lamp, but the internal filament is shorter than usual so it may have been used as a resister. It is stored in a green and white box for a Sylvania lamp which is unrelated to the object.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Computers
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: In memory of Malcolm S. McIlroy
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CI.316525.06
label: catalog number
content: 316525.06
label: accession number
content: 316525
objectType: label: Object Name
content: computer component, analog
label: Object Name
content: mainframe computer component, analog
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 30 cm x 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm; 11 13/16 in x 1 3/8 in x 1 3/8 in