The collection documents most of Sperry-Univac's major company functions from its beginnings into the 1970s and includes a large body of materials generated by the Sperry-Honeywell lawsuit that revolved around the question about who invented the first electronic-digital computer.

The Honeywell-Sperry Rand lawsuit produced 50,000 pages of trial transcript, and over 36,000 documents were entered in evidence. Sperry Rand's lawyers produced a huge archive of trial documents. Two major files were created, the "Original file" of documents from Sperry Rand's own archives, and the "Chronolog​ical file" of all documents located during the discovery process and entered as exhibits. The trial archive is a major source on the history of the computer industry.

The Legal papers document Sperry-UNIVAC's efforts to defend and license the ENIAC patent. This series contains patent interference files as well as the records generated by the Sperry attorneys who worked on the Sperry-Rand vs. Bell Laboratories case (1956-1957) the Sperry Rand vs. IBM case (1963-1964). This series also contains a fragment of the legal correspondence generated by the Sperry-Honeywell suit.

This Executive Officers series describes the history of the company during the 1960s, a period during which it steadily lost market share to IBM. The correspondence of President R.E. McDonald and Vice Presidents F.R. Raach and G.H. Geick documents corporate strategy, organization changes, technological innovation, and sales policies.

The Technical Documents series trace the technological history of electronic data processing at Sperry Rand From the 1950s to the mid 1970s, as they describe the development of five generations of computers. The archive traces the evolving relationship between hardware and software. It shows that the earliest programs for the ENIAC were done in a machine language that mirrored the physical construction of the computer. With the introduction of stored programs, full computer languages such as COBOL were developed. The records document the development of the UNIVAC algebraic short language code by Grace Hopper in the early 1950s. Software publications files trace innovations in UNIVAC software from 1958 to 1970 and show how software engineers sought to maximize hardware potential.

The Engineering Department records include the files of J.P. Eckert, who was department head from 1953 to 1964 and those of Herman Lukoff who led the department from 1965 to 1975. The files describe the development of the Livermore Automatic Research Calculator (LARC) that was completed during the late 1950s and the early 1960s. This project, undertaken in conjunction with the Atomic Energy Commission's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, proved to be a tremendous drain on the company's resources. Sperry Rand wound up losing $19 million on the project which was twenty-seven months behind schedule when it was finally completed in 1961. Despite the fact that only two machines were sold, the LARC did make significant contributions to the development of computer technology. The engineers at Sperry were convinced their experiences with the LARC enabled them to build a much more powerful UNIVAC III than would have otherwise been possible.

The Herman Lukoff papers document Sperry-Univac's effort to apply semiconductor and solid-state technology to computer development. The records trace the relationship between advances in these areas and innovations in magnetic memory and mass storage. The files on the UNIVAC 80 show that in 1958 Sperry was the first company to market a computer with transistorized circuitry. Four months later, however, IBM responded with a solid state machine of its own, the 1401, which was to dominate the market for much of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Engineering Research Associates series document (1946-1955) the negotiations which led to the Sperry-ERA merger as well as the engineering work conducted by ERA. In 1952, Remington Rand attempted to strengthen its position in the electronic data processing equipment industry by acquiring Engineering Research Associates (E.R.A.) of St. Paul, Minnesota. At that time, E.R.A. was on the cutting edge of computer technology. However, in 1957, William Norris, the firm's founder, left Sperry to form his own Company, Control Data Corporation.

Sales and Marketing Department series includes advertising brochures, sales bulletins, and proposals prepared for Sperry Univac customers. The files describe most of the major UNIVAC computer systems sold during the 1950s and 1960s. Among the systems represented are those designed for automated accounting systems, numerical control for machine shops, missile guidance, and optical scanning. The sales records document customer expectation and show how Sperry Univac attempted to respond to these changing needs. They show that in spite of Sperry Univac's effort to compete with IBM for corporate contracts during the 1950s and 1960s, the United States government and the military continued to be the company's most important customers. During this period Sperry continued to be a major supplier of computer equipment to the Army, Air Force, Navy, Atomic Energy Commission, General Services Administration, and National Bureau of Standards.

The sales and marketing records also include copies of the Monthly Management Review and Sales Bulletin as well as the minutes of Sperry Univac's Product Planning Group. Management services research reports document efforts to evaluate competitive computer systems with particular emphasis, of course, on IBM.

Also included are administrative records from the Sales and Marketing Department, including procedural manuals, correspondence, budgets, and product planning records. There are also records from the Univac Scientific Exchange (USE, Inc.), which was formed in 1955 to facilitate common standards and information exchange among users of the Univac 1103A computer.

The Programing and service manuals files, which date from 1951, complement the sales literature. These volumes describe most major Univac computer systems and show their evolution over time. The programing manuals can be used in conjunction with the software publication files to trace the relationship between hardware and software development.

In June 1977 Sperry-UNIVAC aquired Varian Data Machines. The operation became known as the Sperry Univac Mini Computer Operations. Corporate records series include merger and divestiture agreements, Varian technical documents, sales literature, and manuals.

Patent and licensing series includes the files of patent attorney W.E. Cleaver and copies of domestic, and foreign licensing agreements.

Personnel Department records series contains departmental correspondence files as well as records of contract negotiations, arbitration, grievance, and National Labor Relations Board Proceedings.