First Edition Proceedings of A Symposium on Large Scale Digital Calculating Machinery Signed by Participant

First Edition . Symposium on Large-Scale Digital Calculating Machinery: Proceedings Jointly Sponsored by the Navy Department Bureau of Ordnance and Harvard University at the Computation Laboratory, 7-10 January 1947. (Cambridge: Harvard U. P., 1948). Volume XVI in the Annals of the Computation Laboratory of Harvard University. 302 pages. Text illustrations. From the library of Harry R. Mimno (1900-1981), professor of applied physics at Harvard and a participant in the conference (see page xxiv), with his signature on the front pastedown. Original dark blue cloth, with scarce pictorial dust-jacket with a few tiny chips and nicks. Fine copy.

Organized by Howard Aiken, the 1947 Symposium on Large-Scale Digital Computing was the first large meeting of professionals in the computer field. Hosted in connection with the official opening of Harvard University's new Computation Laboratory in January of that year, the symposium provided one of the first forums for discussion regarding the problems and approaches in the design, construction, operation, and application of computers.

Howard Aiken, head of the Computation Laboratory, devoted his energies in the years following World War II to a campaigning about the value of personal computers. The symposium that he organized was designed to assist in spreading technology beyond laboratories and universities in order to make computers an accessible part of daily life. The symposium's primary focus was on technological approaches to machine computation. Over three hundred people attended the conference, including notable figures such as Alan Turing, Edmund Berkeley, Grace Hopper, Wallace Eckert, Jay Forrester, John Mauchly, Herman Goldstine, George Stibitz, Harry Mimno, and Norbert Wiener (who caused something of a stir when, for ideological reasons, he withdrew at the last minute from presenting a paper at the symposium). Mimno, who owned this copy, played a significant role in the planning and building of the Harvard Mark I computer; his full signature is written clearly on the pastedown of the front cover.