A week-end off: the first extensive number-theoretical computation on the ENIAC

The first extensive number-theoretical computation run on the ENIAC, is reconstructed. The problem, computing the exponent of 2 modulo a prime, was set up on the ENIAC during a week-end in July 1946 by the number-theorist D.H. Lehmer, with help from his wife Emma and John Mauchly. Important aspects of the ENIAC's design are presented-and the reconstruction of the implementation of the problem on the ENIAC is discussed in its salient points

ABSTRACTS

AbstractThe purpose of this department is to give sufficient information about the subject matter of each publication to enable users to decide whether to read it. It is our intention to cover all books, articles, and other materials in the field.Books for abstracting and eventual review should be sent to this department. Materials should be sent to Prof. David E. Zitarelli, Department of Mathematics, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, U.S.A. (e-mail: [email protected])Readers are invited to send reprints, autoabstracts, corrections, additions, and notices of publications that have been overlooked. Be sure to include complete bibliographic information, as well as transliteration and translation for non-European languages. We need volunteers willing to cover one or more journals for this department.In order to facilitate reference and indexing, entries are given abstract numbers which appear at the end following the symbol #. A triple numbering system is used: the first number indicates the volume, the second the issue number, and the third the sequential number within that issue. For example, the abstracts for Volume 20, Number 1, are numbered: 20.1.1, 20.1.2, 20.1.3, etc.For reviews and abstracts published in Volumes 1 through 13 there are anauthor indexin Volume 13, Number 4, and asubject indexin Volume 14, Number 1.The initials in parentheses at the end of an entry indicate the abstractor. In this issue there are abstracts by Vı́ctor Albis (Bogotá), Irving Anellis (Ames, IA), Thomas L. Bartlow (Villanova, PA), David Bressoud (St. Paul, MN), Catherine Goldstein (Paris), Herbert Kasube (Peoria, IL), Albert C. Lewis (Hamilton), Laura Nurzia (Reading, GB), James V. Rauff (Decatur, IL), Paul Wolfson (West Chester), and David E. Zitarelli

Presidential Address: Future Shock: Education in the Information Age

Presidential Addres

Historical computing : from the abacus to the PC : to inFIBity and beyond!

Catàleg de l'exposició organitzada per la Facultat d'Informàtica de Barcelona, amb motiu del seu 40è aniversariExhibition curator: Joan Antoni Pastor Collado (Barcelona School of Informatics, UPC, Vicedean for Institutional and International Relations)Descripció del recurs: 16 octubre 201

Battle of the Brains: Election-Night Forecasting at the Dawn of the Computer Age

This dissertation examines journalists' early encounters with computers as tools for news reporting, focusing on election-night forecasting in 1952. Although election night 1952 is frequently mentioned in histories of computing and journalism as a quirky but seminal episode, it has received little scholarly attention. This dissertation asks how and why election night and the nascent field of television news became points of entry for computers in news reporting. The dissertation argues that although computers were employed as pathbreaking "electronic brains" on election night 1952, they were used in ways consistent with a long tradition of election-night reporting. As central events in American culture, election nights had long served to showcase both news reporting and new technology, whether with 19th-century devices for displaying returns to waiting crowds or with 20th-century experiments in delivering news by radio. In 1952, key players - television news broadcasters, computer manufacturers, and critics - showed varied reactions to employing computers for election coverage. But this computer use in 1952 did not represent wholesale change. While live use of the new technology was a risk taken by broadcasters and computer makers in a quest for attention, the underlying methodology of forecasting from early returns did not represent a sharp break with pre-computer approaches. And while computers were touted in advance as key features of election-night broadcasts, the "electronic brains" did not replace "human brains" as primary sources of analysis on election night in 1952. This case study chronicles the circumstances under which a new technology was employed by a relatively new form of the news media. On election night 1952, the computer was deployed not so much to revolutionize news reporting as to capture public attention. It functioned in line with existing values and practices of election-night journalism. In this important instance, therefore, the new technology's technical features were less a driving force for adoption than its usefulness as a wonder and as a symbol to enhance the prestige of its adopters. This suggests that a new technology's capacity to provide both technical and symbolic social utility can be key to its chances for adoption by the news media