Finding Aids

The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) was involved in duplicating and making available court documents of interest to their members. CCIA assembled documents, assigned their own numbering scheme, and in some cases created microfiche copies of the records. The IBM antitrust trial records consists of CCIA photocopies and microfiche copies of trial transcripts, trial exhibits, depositions, legal memoranda, motions, subpoenas, and other documents relating to antitrust suits brought against IBM throughout the 1970s.

Harry Lobe Straus (1896-1949) was an early computer engineer and developer of totalisator or "tote board," an electronic system that printed and issued betting tickets at racetracks, automatically computed the bets and odds, and displayed them on a large board. This collection is a small group of papers preserved by his personal secretary, Christine Behm Nunus (1906-1998). It includes financial statements, business letters, estate papers, and items relating to Straus's biography, "Win. Place. Show."

The IBM Technical History Project was begun in 1980 following the suggestion that books be written about IBM's technical history. The books that were subsequently written were based, in part, on 361 oral history interviews. This collection contains the interviews bound in eight volumes.

Isaac Auerbach (1921-1992) joined the staff of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation to work on the UNIVAC project in June of 1946. One of his initial assignments was to survey and analyze the "large-scale computing projects" that were underway in the various computational laboratories throughout the country. This report goes through the history of analog computing, the development of digital computing and computational theory, current computer development projects at research institutions and commercial firms, and the commercial market for electronic digital computers.

Peter Eisenhower Packard (1948-2017) spent his career in information technology at Bell Laboratories, SIAC, Bessemer Trust, and Sperry-UNIVAC. The Sperry Corporation was an electronics company, and the UNIVAC Division manufactured the first commercial digital computer. This collection consists of nine technical programming and operators' manuals for UNIVAC systems, which date from 1962 to 1969.

The IBM antitrust suit records are a collection assembled by Richard Thomas DeLamarter, a senior economist working for the Department of Justice on the case from 1974 to 1982. He is the author of Big Blue: IBM's Use and Abuse of Power (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986).

The collection consists of copies of trial records collected by Seymour C. Yuter (dates unknown), a patent attorney for Technitrol, Inc. They include documents from the interlocking suits of Technitrol v. Control Data Corp., Technitrol v. Sperry Rand, and Technitrol v. U.S.A., which came to trial between the late 1950s and the mid 1970s. The principal point at issue was, who was the inventor of the magnetic storage drum. The records provide a fascinating picture of the early history of the computer industry and trace the role played by the military in the years immediately after World War II.

Simon E. Gluck was an engineer educated at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering, who worked on most of its computer projects during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The collection consists of research reports, progress reports, engineering drawings, published articles, and lecture notes which describe the development of the ENIAC, EDVAC, MSAC, and SEAC computers.

Engineering Research Associates (ERA) origins can be traced to the classified World War II-era Navy project to break the German secret codes by using electronic data processing. After the war, ERA became a private sector company that did pioneering work in computer development. In 1952, it was purchased by Remington Rand. The records include the correspondence of ERA's founding engineers including William Norris and Arnold Cohen. Also included is business and technical correspondence, legal records, patents, and oral histories.

The Sperry Corporation was an electronics company and the UNIVAC Division manufactured the first commercial digital computer. The Sperry UNIVAC division has its origins in the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), founded in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John W. Mauchly (1907-1980). In 1950, Eckert and Mauchly sold their firm to Remington Rand, Inc, a major manufacturer of business machines, who continued development of the UNIVAC system. The collection documents most of Sperry-Univac's major company functions 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 Sperry Corporation was an electronics company and the UNIVAC Division manufactured the first commercial digital computer. The Sperry UNIVAC division has its origins in the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), founded in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John W. Mauchly (1907-1980), the developers of ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer. This collection consists of the administrative, financial, marketing, personnel, and legal records of Sperry UNIVAC and its predecessor companies. Also included are manuals, reports, and publications on hardware and software developed by Sperry UNIVAC; task force reports and studies for developing new products; printed materials from the Systems Programming Library Service; and biographical and historical data.

The Sperry Corporation was an electronics company; its UNIVAC Division manufactured the first commercial digital computer. The Sperry UNIVAC Division has its origins in the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), founded in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John W. Mauchly (1907-1980). In 1950, Eckert and Mauchly sold their firm to Remington Rand, Inc, a major business machine manufacturer, which continued developing the UNIVAC system. Thomas "Tim" J. Bergin (1940-) is an emeritus professor of computer science and information systems at American University; he was also curator/director of the Computer History Museum. Bergin obtained this collection of UNIVAC/ENIAC historical materials from other computer pioneers. The collection consists of research reports, booklets, published articles, lecture notes, and audiovisual materials that describe the development of the EDVAC, ENIAC, and UNIVAC computers. The materials are organized into five series by format: Manuals and pamphlets; Articles and reprints; Tributes and anniversary materials; Photographs and films; and Objects.

UNITE, Inc. stands for Unisys Information Technology Exchange, a not-for-profit corporation, where members share information about Unisys and the use and development of information technology. The predescessor, UNIVAC Scientific Exchange (USE) was formed in 1955, consisting of UNIVAC 1103A computer users (Boeing Airplane Company, Holloman Air Force Base, Lockheed Missile Systems Division and Ramo-Woolridge Corporation) and Sperry-UNIVAC representatives. Their records document the evolving relationship between USE, Inc. and Sperry-UNIVAC including the history of software development through problem issues reported and improvements, response to user demands, and customer expectations.