Leiner (Alan and Henrietta) oral history
In this oral history, Alan and Henrietta Leiner tell about the work that they did for the U.S. government in Washington, D.C. at the National Bureau of Standards, where three pioneering computers were designed. In 1950 the first of these computers, the SEAC, was put into operation. It operated successfully for many years, using programs that were stored within the machine. In 1952 the second computer, the DYSEAC, was completed and was installed in a trailer van, thus making it a mobile computer. It was capable of interacting in real time with a variety of external devices, including the SEAC. In 1959 these capabilities were expanded in the PILOT, whose system included a network of three independent computers capable of working together concurrently on a common problem. Alan Leiner and his staff devised the logical design of these pioneering computers. He and Henrietta Leiner subsequently undertook a second career, investigating the computing structures in the human brain, which led to a surprising discovery about the brain structures that contribute to the cognitive capabilities of humans.
Item Details
- Date
- 2004-06-30 (Made)
- Type
- Moving Image
- Catalogue number
- 102618634
- Organization
- Computer History Museum
- People
- Henrietta Leiner (Interviewee)
Dag Spicer (Interviewer)
Alan L. Leiner (Interviewee) - Category
- Oral History
- Format
- DVCAM
- Place of publication
- North America/USA/CA/Mountain View
- Language
- English
- Acquisition number
- X2808.2004
- Subject
- UNIVAC I, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), United States Air Force, Hunter College, SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer), SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer)
- Archive collection
- CHM Oral History Collection
- Archive hierarchy
- CHM Oral History Collection