IAS machine

History

In 1944 summer, John von Neumann met Herman Goldstine, a computer architect and a principle investigator of the ENIAC machine. In this meeting, Goldstine presented the ENIAC project to von Neumann. As the result of this meeting, von Neumann wrote a memo called First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC as the proposed IAS computer project. Goldstine typed the report and made a distribution on June 25, 1945. Von Neumann invited Goldstine to join the IAS project in early 1946, as the assistant director and later the director of the project. Arthur Burks, a senior engineer of the ENIAC project came with Goldstine to work in the IAS project. In early summer of 1946, Julian Bigelow was hired as chief engineer, and three other earlier engineers were James H. Pomerene, Ralph J. Slutz, and Willis Ware.{{cite book

Description

The IAS machine was a binary computer with a 40-bit word, storing two 20-bit instructions in each word. The memory was 1,024 words (5 kilobytes in modern terminology). Negative numbers were represented in two's complement format. It had two general-purpose registers available: the Accumulator (AC) and Multiplier/Quotient (MQ). It used 1,700 vacuum tubes (triode types: 6J6, 5670, 5687, a few diodes: type 6AL5, 150 pentodes to drive the memory CRTs, and 41 CRTs (type: 5CP1A): 40 used as Williams tubes for memory plus one more to monitor the state of a memory tube). The memory was originally designed for about 2,300 RCA Selectron vacuum tubes. Problems with the development of these complex tubes forced the switch to Williams tubes.

It weighed about 1000 lb.

It was an asynchronous machine, meaning that there was no central clock regulating the timing of the instructions. One instruction started executing when the previous one finished. The addition time was 62 microseconds and the multiplication time was 713 microseconds.

Although some claim the IAS machine was the first design to mix programs and data in a single memory, that had been implemented four years earlier by the 1948 Manchester Baby. The Soviet MESM also became operational prior to the IAS machine.

Von Neumann showed how the combination of instructions and data in one memory could be used to implement loops, by modifying branch instructions when a loop was completed, for example. The requirement that instructions, data and input/output be accessed via the same bus later came to be known as the Von Neumann bottleneck.

IAS machine derivatives

Plans for the IAS machine were widely distributed to any schools, businesses, or companies interested in computing machines, resulting in the construction of several derivative computers referred to as "IAS machines", although they were not software compatible.

Some of these "IAS machines" were:

• AVIDAC (Argonne National Laboratory)
• BESK (Stockholm)
• BESM (Moscow)
• Circle Computer (Hogan Laboratories, Inc.),
• IAS type machine:
• 1954
• CYCLONE (Iowa State University)
• DASK (Regnecentralen, Copenhagen 1958)
• GEORGE (Argonne National Laboratory)
• IBM 701 (19 installations)
• ILLIAC I (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)
  • MUSASINO-1 (Musashino, Tokyo, Japan)
• JOHNNIAC (RAND)
• MANIAC I (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
• MISTIC (Michigan State University)
• ORACLE (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
• ORDVAC (Aberdeen Proving Ground)
• PERM (Munich)Turing's Cathedral, by George Dyson, 2012, p. 287
• SARA (SAAB)
• SEAC (Washington, D.C.)
• SILLIAC (University of Sydney)
• SMIL (Lund University)
• TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research)
• WEIZAC (Weizmann Institute)

References

References

1. "The IAS Computer, 1952". [[National Museum of American History]], Smithsonian Institution.
2. (2010). "Computer Organization". Technical Publications.
3. [http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_334741 Smithsonian IAS webpage]
4. John Markoff. (February 22, 2003). "Julian Bigelow, 89, Mathematician and Computer Pioneer". [[The New York Times]].
5. Goldstein, Herman. (1972). "The Computer: From Pascal to von Neumann". Princeton University Press.
6. Macrae, Norman. (1999). "John Von Neumann: The Scientific Genius who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More". American Mathematical Soc..
7. (Oct 1952). "Automatic Computing Machinery: News - Institute for Advanced Study". Mathematics of Computation.
8. Dyson, George. (March 2003). "TED (Technology Entertainment Design)". TED Conferences, LLC.
9. [http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/rand/P-377_The_History_And_Development_Of_The_IAS_Computer_Mar53.pdf The history and development of the electronic computer project at the Institute for Advanced Study. Ware. 1953]
10. Weik, Martin H.. (December 1955). "IAS".
11. "Manchester Baby Computer".
12. "Electronic Computer Project". [[Institute for Advanced Study]].
13. (2003). "The IAS computer family scrapbook {{!}} 102693640 {{!}} Computer History Museum".
14. "Commercially Available General-Purpose Electronic Digital Computers of Moderate Price: THE CIRCLE COMPUTER".
15. Weik, Martin H.. (Dec 1955). "CIRCLE".