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Subject: Dead Media Working Note 01.7
Dead Medium: The Comparator; the Rapid Selector
From: boneill_AT_allinux1.alliance.net (Bradley O'Neill)
Dear Bruce,
Here's some information on pre-encryption/decryption technologies
of the 1930s and 40s. These creatures were the stillbirths of Vannevar Bush's
projects at MIT and OP-20-G (Naval encryption division).
Most people know Bush as grandaddy of info-science,
and prognosticator of hypertext (in the famous article in
a 1945 edition of _Atlantic Monthly,_ Bush envisioned a
hyper-linked bibliography system called MEMEX, an
idealized machine that was never built).
Well, when I started looking into developmental
background on BOMBE decryption devices for the German
ENIGMA encryption system, I stumbled onto a source
examining Vannevar Bush's role in creating Rapid
Selector/Tabulating machines for the Navy and private
industry, all inventions that predate Bush's idea of
MEMEX.
This particular text is I'm citing is _Information and
Secrecy: Vannevar Bush, Ultra, and the Other Memex_ by
Colin Burke; Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Metuchen N.J., 1994. LOC: HD9696.C772B87 1994
Dr. Burke goes in-depth on several Bush "Rapid
Selector" inventions that precede the development of
successful analog optic-cryptoanalytic machines of WWII.
Principal among them:
THE COMPARATOR: 70mm Eastman-Kodak paper-tape based electronic crypto-analytic
prototype, funded by the US Navy, built mostly at MIT, first assembled in 1938.
The Comparator was plagued by years of mechanical setbacks. Bush wanted a "high-speed"
(projected to be 100 times faster than 1920s tabulators) parallel processing analyser
that utilized photo-cell light readings to index (and thus decode) up to 50,000
character comparisons per minute.
Very low memory capability caused printing/retrieval
problems. Bush realized that without microfilm density,
the processing speeds were also unachievable. And if
microfilm was used, then the reading/recording
capabilities would suffer from insufficient resolution.
THE RAPID SELECTOR: Begun in 1937. Bush's MIT team first built this analyser
in 1940. Funding was dropped by a disgruntled FBI and subsequently picked up by
various private foundations including Eastman and NCR (Bush was apparently an
undaunted spinner of techno-dreams ala Steve Jobs). The Rapid Selector went through
several incarnations, but was conceived as a specialized data- retrieval system
for business records or scientific research.
The Rapid Selector was a microfilm-based analyser
consisting of a 7' tall relay rack, housing the film
drives. Like its sister,the Comparator, it used a light-
sensing reader system to allow speedy retrieval of
microfilmed information. The user compiled a series of
punchcard notes that were indexed into microfilm storage
by a system operator/librarian.
The Rapid Selector would then allow the user to
cross-reference other researchers' additions to the user's
"specialized area" without sorting through irrelevant
texts. Bush saw the Rapid Selector as an eventual
replacement for card catalogues.
Although Bush conquered his basic speed/retrieval
problems, the required coding system to access information
ultimately proved prohibitively complex. The specialized
typewriter for the code-punch was also unworkable.
Burke's text is full of other useful information,
follies, and successes that orbit around the development
of these pre-digital machines. I'll post more as I digest
it.
Regards,
Bradley.
Dead
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08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |