The Edmund C. Berkeley papers primarily consist of records related to Simon the mechanical, or electric, brain. Included are numerous working copies of construction plans for Simon, and two final versions that were for sale to the public. There is also a folder of material related to Simon V, designed by John P. Marchant. The collection contains numerous articles and press releases about Simon, as well as a technical report by Andrew Vall. It also includes drafts of articles that appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine, materials related to an exhibition of robots sponsored by the Associated Merchandising Corporation, and a member roster of the Association for Computing Machinery from 1950. There is a small amount of material related to the robots Squee: the Robot Squirrel, Rudy, and Franken. Correspondents of note include Robert A. Jensen, and Robert Sutherland. The collection covers the years 1947 to 1966, with the bulk of the material being from 1951 to 1953. The collection has one series "Robots," which is arranged chronologically.
Biographical Note
Edmund Callis Berkeley was an American computer scientist and social activist. Berkeley was born on March 20, 1909. Berkeley earned a BA in mathematics and logic from Harvard University in 1930 and went to work for Mutual Life Insurance of New York as an actuarial clerk. In 1934 he joined Prudential Insurance of America, where he eventually became chief research consultant. In 1941 Berkeley passed his last professional actuarial examinations. Berkeley joined the Navy in 1942 and worked at Dahlgren Laboratory as a mathematician. There, he was assigned to the Harvard Computation Laboratory, where he worked on the sequential calculator project (MARK II).
Berkeley returned to Prudential after leaving the Navy in 1946. In 1947 he helped found the Eastern Association for Computing Machinery and served as its first secretary. In 1948 the association was renamed the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
Berkeley left Prudential in 1948 and established Edmund C. Berkeley & Associates, actuarial consultants. In 1954 Berkeley & Associates incorporated as Berkeley Enterprises, Inc.
In 1947 Berkeley presented the idea for a very simple model mechanical brain to the Association for Symbolic Logic in New York. That idea was the focus of the third chapter of Berkeley's book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think (1949). The purpose of the chapter was to introduce a general audience to the fundamentals of computing circuits used in very large mechanical brains. Berkeley named his teaching model Simon in honor of the Mother Goose character Simple Simon. Simon as an actual machine was begun in 1949, and finished in April, 1950. Simon was constructed by the combined efforts of three men: William A. Porter, a skilled mechanic, and two Columbia University electrical engineering graduate students, Robert A. Jensen and Andrew Vall.
Berkeley supplemented his income by consulting on the applications, marketing, and uses of automatic machinery for handling information and computing. He published a quarterly computer magazine, which eventually expanded into the monthly journal Computers and Automation. Additionally, he became involved in public education in Massachusetts, and set up correspondence courses in general knowledge, mathematics, computers, and logic systems. He continued to write books on computers, logic, and learning and reviewed books for the Library of Science series. Berkeley marketed his own books, robots, and teaching machines through self-published mail order catalogs. Berkeley sometimes wrote and published under the pseudonym Neil D. MacDonald.
Berkeley was active in the peace movement and in 1958 became involved with the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). Berkeley had worked against the threat of nuclear war ever since he had been part of a "hazards project" at Prudential. The "hazards project" was charged with identifying the greatest modern hazards. Berkeley came to the conclusion that nuclear war was the greatest hazard facing mankind. When Prudential abandoned the project and forbade Berkeley from working on it, even on his own time, he quit.
Edmund Berkeley died on March 7, 1988 at the age of 79.
Berkeley's original folder title was "Robots - exhibiting, etc. - current." Also, contains one 3x5 black and white photograph of Edmund C. Berkeley, Robert A. Jenson, and Andrew Vall looking at Simon.
Includes "Preliminary Report on the Magnetic Drum Memory," "Tic-Tac-Toe Playing Machine Plans," "Memoradum for Members of the Robot Enterprise," and a press release for Edmund C. Berkeley and Associates' exhibit of small robots.
Includes drafts of articles for Radio Electronics, clippings of articles by Edmund C. Berkeley and Robert A. Jensen from Radio Electronics, handwritten diagrams and notes, and correspondence.
