The RAYDAC by Louis Fein

The First International Research Conference on the History of Computing was a milestone in the history of computing, drawing a global elite of computer pioneers from the first generation of electronic digital computing. Most talks are approximately 45 minutes in duration and feature a lecture with a brief question and answer period afterwards. Fein worked on sonar systems at the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory in World War II. He subsequently joined Raytheon, where he helped develop the RAYDAC computer for the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. Completed in 1953, the liquid freon-cooled RAYDAC contained 5,200 vacuum tubes, used acoustic delay-line memory and magnetic tape storage, and was one of the first digital computers to use error detection on all operations. Fein later became founder and president of Computer Control Corporation, an early and important maker of digital computing systems. This lecture’s transcript was not included in the edited volume from the conference, viz. Metropolis, N., and Howlett, J., Rota, Gian-Carlo, A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1980. Catalog Number: 102695479