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The Origins of Cyberspace collection described as lots 1-255 will first be offered as a single lot, subject to a reserve price. If this price is not reached, the collection will be immediately offered as individual lots as described in the catalogue as lots 1-255.
COMRIE, Leslie John (1893-1950). The application of the Hollerith tabulating machine to Brown's tables of the moon. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (May 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. The first use of a punched-card tabulating system in a purely scientific application -- calculating the position of the moon at noon and midnight from 1935 to the end of the twentieth century. From Gutenberg to the Internet4.1. OOC 266.
Details
COMRIE, Leslie John (1893-1950). The application of the Hollerith tabulating machine to Brown's tables of the moon. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (May 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. The first use of a punched-card tabulating system in a purely scientific application -- calculating the position of the moon at noon and midnight from 1935 to the end of the twentieth century. From Gutenberg to the Internet4.1. OOC 266.
COMRIE. On the application of the Brunsviga-Dupla calculating machine to double summation with finite differences. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 88 (March 1928). Original gray printed wrappers. Includes a brief history of difference machines from Babbage onward, and detailed instructions on how to use the Brunsviga-Dupla calculating machine in differencing operations. When OOC was written, OCLC cited one copy at the United States Naval Observatory. OOC 257.
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE. Scientific Computing Service. Offered by L. J. Comrie, M.A, Ph.D. London, n.d. [1937]. Original blue printed wrappers. The SCS was the world's first independent commercial computing service bureau specializing in scientific computing. The above brochure was written by Comrie, who stated that "I am endeavouring to offer the scientific public an entirely new service -- namely computations of a scientific or technical nature, done by trained professional computers using, whenever possible, the calculating and accounting machines that are now available." An appendix at the end lists Comrie's publications in the field of computing. OOC 273.
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE. Scientific Computing Service Limited ... A description of its activities, equipment and staff. N.p, 1938. Original blue printed wrappers. This brochure, published after the business was incorporated a year after its foundation, contains a list of the Scientific Computing Service's principal activities -- which included scientific calculation, table making, statistical analysis, and the numerical solution of differential equations -- as well as descriptions of the adding, multiplying, and punched-card machines in use by the Service. At the end is a bibliography of "Publications by members of the staff"; all but two of the works listed are by. From Gutenberg to the Internet4.5. OOC 274.
Comrie pioneered the use of commercial accounting machines in scientific applications, especially in the production of mathematical tables for astronomy, navigation, and other purposes, and in the 1930s set up the world's first computing service bureau for scientific computing, using human computers operating electric calculating machines. In 1925 Comrie joined the Nautical Almanac Office in England, becoming deputy supervisor the following year. He introduced the standard equinox, which provided a fixed frame of reference for the computation of the orbits of comets and minor planets (OOC 255 included in this lot). The annual set of navigational tables published in the Nautical Almanac was the direct linear successor of tables issued without interruption from 1767-1831 by the Commissioners of Longitude, and from 1832-1959 by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty. It was often called the Seaman's Bible. "The Nautical Almanac was not computed directly by the Royal Observatory, but by a number of freelance human computers dotted around Great Britain. The calculations were performed twice, independently, by two computers, and checked by a third 'comparator.' Many of these human computers were retired clerks or clergymen with a facility for figures and a reputation for reliability who worked from home. We know almost nothing of these anonymous drudges. Probably the only one to escape oblivion was the Reverend Malachy Hitchins, an eighteenth-century Cornish clergyman who was a computer and comparator for the Nautical Almanac for a period of forty years. A lifetime of computation dedication earned him a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. When Astronomer Royal Maskelyne died in 1811 -- Hitchins had died two years previously -- the Nautical Almanac was sadly neglected for about twenty years, and became became notorious for its errors.. During these evil days Babbage had set about developing a difference engine as a mechanical substitute for table production by human computers.
Early in his career at the Nautical Almanac Office in the late 1920s Comrie discovered that the Burroughs accounting machine, although intended for commercial applications, could be used without modification as a difference engine (OOC 257). This discovery enabled him to revise almost single-handedly the Nautical Almanac (which had remained essentially unchanged for nearly a century) and to mechanize all of the calculations performed at the Office, which he transformed into the most efficient computing organization of its day. "Instead of using freelance computers, with their high degree of scientific training, he decided to systematize the work and make use of ordinary clerical labor and standard calculating machines. Almost all of Comrie's human computers were young, unmarried women with just a basic knowledge of commercial arithmetic.
"Comrie's great insight was to realize that one did not need special-purpose machines such as differential analyzers; he thought computing was primarily a question of organization. For most calculations, he found that his 'calculating girls' equipped with ordinary commercial calculating machines did the job perfectly well. Soon the Nautical Almanac Office was fitted out with Comptometers, Burroughs adding machines, and NCR accounting machines. Inside the Nautical Alamanac Office, at first glance, the scene could easily have been mistaken for that in any ordinary commercial office. This was appropriate, for the Nautical Almanac Office was simply processing data that happened to be scientific rather than commercial" (Campbell-Kelly and Aspray 1996, 67).
In 1936 Comrie left the Admiralty to form the London-based Scientific Computing Service (SCS), the world's first independent service bureau set up to take in outside scientific computing work on a commercial basis (see no. 273). At this time the British Tabulating Machine Company, Limited (BTM), manufacturer of the Hollerith line of tabulating machines, and a subsidiary of IBM, operated punched-card service bureaus for commercial rather than scientific applications all over England. Comrie maintained a consulting relationship with BTM for many years and earned commissions on referrals.
Reflecting the meaning of the word in Comrie's time, the "computers" in Comrie's service remained the people who operated the mechanical calculators rather than the machines themselves. At SCS Comrie was better able to develop his methods of mechanical computation. "He laid a solid foundation for the computational revolution that was to follow the introduction of the electronic computer: he showed how to 'program' commercial machines for scientific computation; developed impeccable interpolation techniques; produced mathematical tables of the highest standards of accuracy and presentation ... "(DSB). His aim was always the adaptation of mass-produced accounting machines to scientific purposes, rather than the creation of "one-off" special-purpose calculating devices that would be expensive both to build and maintain. In Origins of Cyberspace are collected Comrie's papers on the production of mathematical tables rather than his numerous editions of the tables themselves. Because most of the following papers are offprints that were usually not catalogued by libraries, we mentioned OCLC only in cases where items were actually cited. Readers may infer that there were no OCLC citations of copies of the remaining papers when OOC was written.
Included in this lot are the following other pamphlets by Comrie: [COMRIE, Leslie John (1893-1950).] British Astronomical Association. Memoirs 24 (1921), part 1. Computing Section. First report of the section. N.p, September 1921. Disbound. OOC 253. -- COMRIE. "Phenomena of Saturn's satellites." In British Astronomical Association. Memoirs 30, pt. 3 (n.d.): 33-42. (Computing Section. Second report of the section.) N.p, n.d. Unbound. OOC 254. -- COMRIE. The use of a standard equinox in astronomy. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 86 (1926). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 255. -- COMRIE. Computing by calculating machines. Offprint from The Accountants' Journal 45 (May 1927). Original cream printed wrappers. OOC 256. -- COMRIE. On the construction of tables by interpolation. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 88 (April 1928). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 258. -- COMRIE. Recent developments in calculating machines. Offprint from Office Machinery Users' Association Transactions (1927-28). Original green printed wrappers. OOC 259. -- COMRIE. Interpolation tables. Offprint from the Nautical Almanac for 1931 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1929). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 260. -- COMRIE. Mathematical tables. Offprint from British Astronomical Association Handbook for 1929. Original pink printed wrappers. OOC 261. -- COMRIE. The Hollerith and Powers tabulating machines. Offprint from Office Machinery Users' Association Transactions (1929-30). Original green printed wrappers. OOC 262. -- CHAPPELL, E. and COMRIE. A new method of second difference integration on the brunsviga-dupla machine ... And note on mr. Chappell's method of second difference integration. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 91 (May 1931). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 263. -- COMRIE. Mathematical tables. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (February 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 264. -- COMRIE. The Nautical Almanac Office Burroughs machine. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (April 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 265. -- COMRIE. Modern Babbage machines. In Office Machinery Users' Association Limited Bulletin [1932]. Mimeographed document. Original green printed wrappers. OOC 267. -- COMRIE. Computing the Nautical Almanac. Offprint from Nautical Magazine (July 1933). Unbound. OOC 268. -- COMRIE. The Hollerith and Powers tabulating machines. London: printed for private circulation, 1933. Original tan printed wrappers. OOC 269. -- COMRIE. Inverse interpolation and scientific applications of the National accounting machine. Offprint from Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 3 (1936). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 270. -- COMRIE. The application of the Brunsviga Twin 13Z calculating machine to the Hartmann formula for the reduction of prismatic spectrograms. Offprint from The Observatory 60 (March 1937). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 271. -- COMRIE. Application of Hollerith equipment to an agricultural investigation. Offprint from Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 4 (1937). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 272. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "List of staff. 1938 June." N.p, 1938. Unbound brochure. OOC 275. -- COMRIE. Hughes' tables for sea and air navigation. London: Henry Hughes and Son, 1938. Unbound brochure. OOC 276. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "Announcement." N.p, [1939]. Unbound. OOC 277. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "List of staff. 1939 January." N.p, 1939. Unbound brochure. OOC 278. -- COMRIE. The use of calculating machines in ray tracing. Offprint from Proceedings of the Physical Society 52 (1940). Unbound. OOC 540. -- COMRIE. "Babbage's dream comes true. [Review of] A manual of operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator." Extract from Nature 158 (October 26, 1946): 567-568pp. Disbound. OOC 542. For further information on these items see Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace.
COMRIE. On the application of the Brunsviga-Dupla calculating machine to double summation with finite differences. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 88 (March 1928). Original gray printed wrappers. Includes a brief history of difference machines from Babbage onward, and detailed instructions on how to use the Brunsviga-Dupla calculating machine in differencing operations. When OOC was written, OCLC cited one copy at the United States Naval Observatory. OOC 257.
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE. Scientific Computing Service. Offered by L. J. Comrie, M.A, Ph.D. London, n.d. [1937]. Original blue printed wrappers. The SCS was the world's first independent commercial computing service bureau specializing in scientific computing. The above brochure was written by Comrie, who stated that "I am endeavouring to offer the scientific public an entirely new service -- namely computations of a scientific or technical nature, done by trained professional computers using, whenever possible, the calculating and accounting machines that are now available." An appendix at the end lists Comrie's publications in the field of computing. OOC 273.
SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE. Scientific Computing Service Limited ... A description of its activities, equipment and staff. N.p, 1938. Original blue printed wrappers. This brochure, published after the business was incorporated a year after its foundation, contains a list of the Scientific Computing Service's principal activities -- which included scientific calculation, table making, statistical analysis, and the numerical solution of differential equations -- as well as descriptions of the adding, multiplying, and punched-card machines in use by the Service. At the end is a bibliography of "Publications by members of the staff"; all but two of the works listed are by. From Gutenberg to the Internet4.5. OOC 274.
Comrie pioneered the use of commercial accounting machines in scientific applications, especially in the production of mathematical tables for astronomy, navigation, and other purposes, and in the 1930s set up the world's first computing service bureau for scientific computing, using human computers operating electric calculating machines. In 1925 Comrie joined the Nautical Almanac Office in England, becoming deputy supervisor the following year. He introduced the standard equinox, which provided a fixed frame of reference for the computation of the orbits of comets and minor planets (OOC 255 included in this lot). The annual set of navigational tables published in the Nautical Almanac was the direct linear successor of tables issued without interruption from 1767-1831 by the Commissioners of Longitude, and from 1832-1959 by the Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty. It was often called the Seaman's Bible. "The Nautical Almanac was not computed directly by the Royal Observatory, but by a number of freelance human computers dotted around Great Britain. The calculations were performed twice, independently, by two computers, and checked by a third 'comparator.' Many of these human computers were retired clerks or clergymen with a facility for figures and a reputation for reliability who worked from home. We know almost nothing of these anonymous drudges. Probably the only one to escape oblivion was the Reverend Malachy Hitchins, an eighteenth-century Cornish clergyman who was a computer and comparator for the Nautical Almanac for a period of forty years. A lifetime of computation dedication earned him a place in the Dictionary of National Biography. When Astronomer Royal Maskelyne died in 1811 -- Hitchins had died two years previously -- the Nautical Almanac was sadly neglected for about twenty years, and became became notorious for its errors.. During these evil days Babbage had set about developing a difference engine as a mechanical substitute for table production by human computers.
Early in his career at the Nautical Almanac Office in the late 1920s Comrie discovered that the Burroughs accounting machine, although intended for commercial applications, could be used without modification as a difference engine (OOC 257). This discovery enabled him to revise almost single-handedly the Nautical Almanac (which had remained essentially unchanged for nearly a century) and to mechanize all of the calculations performed at the Office, which he transformed into the most efficient computing organization of its day. "Instead of using freelance computers, with their high degree of scientific training, he decided to systematize the work and make use of ordinary clerical labor and standard calculating machines. Almost all of Comrie's human computers were young, unmarried women with just a basic knowledge of commercial arithmetic.
"Comrie's great insight was to realize that one did not need special-purpose machines such as differential analyzers; he thought computing was primarily a question of organization. For most calculations, he found that his 'calculating girls' equipped with ordinary commercial calculating machines did the job perfectly well. Soon the Nautical Almanac Office was fitted out with Comptometers, Burroughs adding machines, and NCR accounting machines. Inside the Nautical Alamanac Office, at first glance, the scene could easily have been mistaken for that in any ordinary commercial office. This was appropriate, for the Nautical Almanac Office was simply processing data that happened to be scientific rather than commercial" (Campbell-Kelly and Aspray 1996, 67).
In 1936 Comrie left the Admiralty to form the London-based Scientific Computing Service (SCS), the world's first independent service bureau set up to take in outside scientific computing work on a commercial basis (see no. 273). At this time the British Tabulating Machine Company, Limited (BTM), manufacturer of the Hollerith line of tabulating machines, and a subsidiary of IBM, operated punched-card service bureaus for commercial rather than scientific applications all over England. Comrie maintained a consulting relationship with BTM for many years and earned commissions on referrals.
Reflecting the meaning of the word in Comrie's time, the "computers" in Comrie's service remained the people who operated the mechanical calculators rather than the machines themselves. At SCS Comrie was better able to develop his methods of mechanical computation. "He laid a solid foundation for the computational revolution that was to follow the introduction of the electronic computer: he showed how to 'program' commercial machines for scientific computation; developed impeccable interpolation techniques; produced mathematical tables of the highest standards of accuracy and presentation ... "(DSB). His aim was always the adaptation of mass-produced accounting machines to scientific purposes, rather than the creation of "one-off" special-purpose calculating devices that would be expensive both to build and maintain. In Origins of Cyberspace are collected Comrie's papers on the production of mathematical tables rather than his numerous editions of the tables themselves. Because most of the following papers are offprints that were usually not catalogued by libraries, we mentioned OCLC only in cases where items were actually cited. Readers may infer that there were no OCLC citations of copies of the remaining papers when OOC was written.
Included in this lot are the following other pamphlets by Comrie: [COMRIE, Leslie John (1893-1950).] British Astronomical Association. Memoirs 24 (1921), part 1. Computing Section. First report of the section. N.p, September 1921. Disbound. OOC 253. -- COMRIE. "Phenomena of Saturn's satellites." In British Astronomical Association. Memoirs 30, pt. 3 (n.d.): 33-42. (Computing Section. Second report of the section.) N.p, n.d. Unbound. OOC 254. -- COMRIE. The use of a standard equinox in astronomy. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 86 (1926). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 255. -- COMRIE. Computing by calculating machines. Offprint from The Accountants' Journal 45 (May 1927). Original cream printed wrappers. OOC 256. -- COMRIE. On the construction of tables by interpolation. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 88 (April 1928). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 258. -- COMRIE. Recent developments in calculating machines. Offprint from Office Machinery Users' Association Transactions (1927-28). Original green printed wrappers. OOC 259. -- COMRIE. Interpolation tables. Offprint from the Nautical Almanac for 1931 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1929). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 260. -- COMRIE. Mathematical tables. Offprint from British Astronomical Association Handbook for 1929. Original pink printed wrappers. OOC 261. -- COMRIE. The Hollerith and Powers tabulating machines. Offprint from Office Machinery Users' Association Transactions (1929-30). Original green printed wrappers. OOC 262. -- CHAPPELL, E. and COMRIE. A new method of second difference integration on the brunsviga-dupla machine ... And note on mr. Chappell's method of second difference integration. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 91 (May 1931). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 263. -- COMRIE. Mathematical tables. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (February 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 264. -- COMRIE. The Nautical Almanac Office Burroughs machine. Offprint from Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 92 (April 1932). Original gray printed wrappers. OOC 265. -- COMRIE. Modern Babbage machines. In Office Machinery Users' Association Limited Bulletin [1932]. Mimeographed document. Original green printed wrappers. OOC 267. -- COMRIE. Computing the Nautical Almanac. Offprint from Nautical Magazine (July 1933). Unbound. OOC 268. -- COMRIE. The Hollerith and Powers tabulating machines. London: printed for private circulation, 1933. Original tan printed wrappers. OOC 269. -- COMRIE. Inverse interpolation and scientific applications of the National accounting machine. Offprint from Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 3 (1936). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 270. -- COMRIE. The application of the Brunsviga Twin 13Z calculating machine to the Hartmann formula for the reduction of prismatic spectrograms. Offprint from The Observatory 60 (March 1937). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 271. -- COMRIE. Application of Hollerith equipment to an agricultural investigation. Offprint from Supplement to the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 4 (1937). Original blue printed wrappers. OOC 272. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "List of staff. 1938 June." N.p, 1938. Unbound brochure. OOC 275. -- COMRIE. Hughes' tables for sea and air navigation. London: Henry Hughes and Son, 1938. Unbound brochure. OOC 276. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "Announcement." N.p, [1939]. Unbound. OOC 277. -- SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING SERVICE LIMITED. "List of staff. 1939 January." N.p, 1939. Unbound brochure. OOC 278. -- COMRIE. The use of calculating machines in ray tracing. Offprint from Proceedings of the Physical Society 52 (1940). Unbound. OOC 540. -- COMRIE. "Babbage's dream comes true. [Review of] A manual of operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator." Extract from Nature 158 (October 26, 1946): 567-568pp. Disbound. OOC 542. For further information on these items see Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace.
Further details
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