A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator

8vo (267 x 200mm), pp. [xvi], 561, [3], with 17 numbered plates (including frontispiece), text illustrations (slight toning). Publisher’s dark blue cloth. A fine copy. First edition. The electromechanical Harvard Mark I was the first programmable calculating machine to produce mathematical tables, thus realizing the dream of Charles Babbage originally set out in print in 1822. Also known as the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, the Mark I was the brainchild of Howard Aiken, who first conceived of building a powerful, large-scale calculating machine in 1935 while pursuing graduate studies in physics at Harvard University. In 1937, after Aiken had become a professor of applied mathematics at Harvard’s Graduate School of Engineering, he proposed his idea to a number of calculating-machine manufacturers, receiving several rejections before finally convincing IBM to undertake the project. “The operating manual for the Mark I calculator – published as Volume 1 of the Annals of the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University – was written largely by Hopper, who was the chief author of chapters 1-3 and the eight appendices following chapter 6. Chapters 4 and 5 were written by Aiken and Robert Campbell, and chapter 6, containing directions for solving sample problems on the machine, was primarily the work of Brooks J. Lockhart” (historyofinformation). Origins of Cyberspace 411. Ceruzzi, Introduction to: A Manual of operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, Charles Babbage Institute reprint series for the history of computing, vol. 8, 1985. Bottom corner slightly bumped. In fine condition in custom clamshell box. 8½" - 11½".