PCjs Machines

Home of the original IBM PC emulator for browsers.

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Institute For Advanced Study's Electronic Computer Project

Below are documents from the Institute for Advanced Study’s Electronic Computer Project (1946-1954), describing the evolution of an “electronic computing instrument”, which would become the first stored-program computer based on the “von Neumann architecture.”

Robert Oppenheimer (right) with John von Neumann in front of the Electronic Computer Project’s ENIAC machine, ca. 1952.
Alan Richards
Robert Oppenheimer (right) with John von Neumann in front of the Electronic Computer Project’s ENIAC machine, ca. 1952. [Source]

Why are these documents here? Partly because they are historically important, but mostly because we would like to add an ECP simulation to the collection of PCjs machines – someday.

A complete list of documents can be found on the Institute’s Libraries and Archives website. Unfortunately, the site notes, without explanation, that “[n]ot all of these documents will be scanned.”

Let me venture a guess as to why: because other organizations digitized them first, and despite their “not-for-profit” status, they want to profit from this work. For example, the paper entitled “Fast Carry Logic for Digital Computers” by Bruce Gilchrist, James H. Pomerene, and S. Y. Wong, is only available for purchase from IEEE.

Documents