Thanks for the recoomendation Noel, I’ve ordered a copy. Looking forward to when it arrives!
Cheers Sytse > On 6 May 2020, at 17:29, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > So, I've come across an odd book that might interest some here: "Achieving > Accuray: A Legacy of Computers and Missiles", by Marshall William McMurray. > > The first couple of chapters merely re-tell the story of earliest computers > (pre-elecronic and electronic), up through the IBM 701, Elliott 401, NCR 304, > SAGE, CDC 6600, IBM 7090, etc. Competent, but nothing special. Then it > gets interesting, though. > > Chapter 4 is "Small Magnetic Drum Computers of the 1950s", and it covers a > bunch of machines I'd never heard of: JAINCOMP B-1 (!), MONROBOT III (!!), > CADAC 101, 102 (!!!) and on and on. > > Chapter 5 is "Real-Time Control Computers", and it covers a long group of > machines: ALWAC I, II, III; Univac Athena; Autonetics Verdan D9A-L; Librascope > C-141 to name but a few. Pure gold, this chapter and the one before - > retrieved > a lot of machines from the memory hole. > > Chapter 6 is "NASA Control Computers", and it covers the usual suspects: IBM > ASC 15, IBM LVDC, IBM GDC, Librascope Centaur, AGC, IBM 4Pi. Some of these > are covered elseshere, but it's nice to have them all in one place. > > Chapter 7 is "Late-Model High Speed Supercomputers", with quite a range: > starting with Cray 1, Sun, SGI, then the various ASCI array multi-processor > systems at LLNL, etc. > > It then moved over to missiles, and goes through a similar progression, > starting early, with some details of WWII era stuff (e.g.Hs 293's), then a > chapter on V-1's amd V-2's and their derivatives. > > More chapters on "Early US Missile Programs", NAA's inertialguidance work and > its applications up through Polaris, Titans, etc. Then more on later US > missiles and their guidance systems, such as Minuteman, Trident and MX. > > A lengthy Chapter 13 is "Soviet and Russian Land-Based Missile Systems", which > doesn't have quite the detail of the US chapters (in which the authot was > personally involved), but is still novel. Another chapter then finishes with > Soiet/Russian naval missiles. > > A very unusual and off-beat work. > > Noel