126 Dahlgren 



Can you describe the evolution of the computer at Dahlgren from those early days to the 

 present and the changing work environment that prompted the evolution! 



Well, I think initially the two computers at Harvard were, you might say, on 

 the frontier of the state of the art at that time. They were sort of experimental 

 computers, and at that point, you couldn't rent big computers from any com- 

 mercial manufacturer — IBM or anybody else. They just didn't have them for 

 rent, so whenever the Navy needed a computer, they had to get money appro- 

 priated and buy the computer. The basic need for the computer is obvious. Of 

 course, once you get a tool like that, then you see other things you can do with it. 



As time went on we did bigger jobs with computers and that required more 

 computers. In the mid-1950's, UNIVAC and IBM also started renting big 

 computers and that changed the whole nature of the computer industry, as well 

 as the Laboratory, in relation to computers. Originally, the Bureau of 

 Ordnance had the concept that there would be one computer center in the 

 Navy because they couldn't afford more than that, or so they thought. It would 

 be some big computer complex, and all the other Navy activities that needed 

 scientific calculations would have to come to that central place to get them done. 

 This held up for a while because nobody else could rent computers, and indus- 

 try couldn't get the Navy to buy any more than those that were at Dahlgren, so 

 when IBM started renting computers, large-scale computers, then other labs 

 also started lobbying for computers. The key thing was they could pay for 

 computers on rental out of project money. They didn't have to get appropria- 

 tions from Congress as long as they had enough project work. Whenever they 

 used the computer, they charged the project, and that money went toward 

 paying the rental for the computer. That caused a big expansion, both in the 

 Navy and in the government in general, of the use of big computers because 

 they could be rented from commercial organizations. 



So now that we had these big computers, we were looking for work in the 

 Navy that required that kind of computation capability. It wasn't hard to find 

 because there was one key thing. The problems were already here, and the 

 engineers and mathematicians were looking for ways to solve them faster and 

 cheaper. If you got a computer, tomorrow you could put a problem on it and try 

 to solve it. In the business world, it was a little different. Once a business had a 

 system working, the manual system working, if they wanted to install a comput- 

 er, they had to keep two systems going for a while before they could switch 

 from one to the other. For that reason, I think the biggest use of computers was 

 in the scientific area, initially. Of course, they were sponsored by the Defense 

 Department. 



As we moved from around 1950 on, commercial computers became avail- 

 able. The question was still raised as to whether commercial computers were 

 right for the Navy's computing center; however, there were several of us who 



