Item Details

Description

The Alfred E. Brenner papers, ranging in date from 1962 to 2010, contain technical and business documents pertaining to high performance computers collected during Brenner's career at institutions such as Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Consortium for Scientific Computing, and the Institute for Defense Analyses. The majority of the collection was published between 1980 and 2000 and consists of product brochures, data sheets, and product summaries. Other materials in the collection include press releases, annual reports, news clippings, scholarly articles, technical reports, catalogs, presentation materials, correspondence, and manuals. In addition to information about high performance computers and manufacturers, there are several subject files on Soviet computing during the 1970s and 1980s. Background Alfred E. Brenner is a physicist and specialist in high performance computing who worked at institutions such as Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the Consortium for Scientific Computing, and the Institute for Defense Analyses over the course of his career. Brenner earned a bachelor's degree in physics and a PhD in experimental high-energy physics, both from MIT. He served on the physics faculty of Harvard University for eleven years, after which he became a Senior Scientist and Head of the Computing Department at the Department of Energy's premier particle physics laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) for fifteen years. He was the first president of the Consortium for Scientific Computing, the corporate parent of the John von Neumann Center. Brenner joined the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) as the Director of Algorithms and Applications Research at the Supercomputing Research Center, now the Center for Computing Sciences. He also served as both a Project Leader and the Deputy Directory in the Information Technology and Systems Division at the IDA. The collection is arranged by company name in rough alphabetical order. Below is a listing of folder titles in the collection. Box 1: Alliant, AMD, Amdahl, AMT, Apollo, Ardent, BBN, Burroughs ILLIAC IV, CDC (old), CDC [2 folders], Charles River Systems, CHOPP, Compaq, Convex [2 folders], Cray Computer Corp., Cray Inc/SGI, Cray Inc/TERA, Cray Research/MMP Box 2: Cray Research/MMP, SRC (Cray), Cray Research [6 folders], Culler Scientific Systems, Cydrome, Data General [2 folders], DEC Alpha, DEC Communications, DEC Historical, DEC [2 folders], Denelcor Box 3: Elxsi, ETA, Evans & Sutherland, Flexible, Floating Point Systems (FPS), Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi [2 folders], IBM 3090, IBM RP3, IBM RS6000, IBM [3 folders], Intel – early Rattner HPC efforts, Japanese computers, Kendall Square Research Box 4: Maspar, Multiflow, NCube, NEC [2 folders], SEL, Sequent, Soviet computers [3 folders], Robotron, Storage Tek, Sun, Silicon Graphics, Texas Instruments/ASC Box 5: Kendall Square Research, Tera [2 folders], Thinking Machines Corp (TMC) Box 6: Xerox Data Systems (XDS), AstroNautics, HyperCube

Level of description

Collection

Date

1962-2010, 1980-2000

Extent

5.63 linear feet in 4 record cartons, 1 legal manuscript box, and 1 half manuscript box

Collection title

Alfred E. Brenner papers

Credit

Gift of Alfred Brenner

Catalogue number

102775098

Lot number

X7516.2015