Inventor Name
Sperry Corporation. Univac Division.
Repository
Hagley Museum & Library
Manuscripts & Archives Department
P.O. Box 3630
Wilmington, DE 19807-0630
302-658-0545
https://www.hagley.org/research
Physical Description
616 linear ft.; Photographs: 3,189 items.
Summary
The Sperry Corporation's Univac Division derived from the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, the developers of ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer. The firm began the development of the UNIVAC, the first stored memory digital computer for commercial applications. Capital shortages forced Eckert and Mauchly to sell the firm to Remington Rand, Inc., a major manfuacturer of business machines, in 1950. The first UNIVAC was delivered in March 1951. To cement its lead in computer manufacture, Remington Rand purchased the Minnesota firm of Engineering Research Associates, a computer company with ties to the defense industry, in 1952. The two acquisitions were consolidated to form the Univac Division. As the first commercial computer system, UNIVAC made a dramatic impression on the American public. At the suggestion of Remington Rand, CBS Television used a UNIVAC to predict the outcome of the 1952 presidential election. This marvelous public relations stroke helped UNIVAC capture the imagination of the nation. During the early 1950s forty-six UNIVAC I models were sold. However, in 1954 IBM introduced its 650 computer, which was a great commercial and technological success, and Remington Rand saw its lead vanish almost overnight. On June 30, 1955, Remington Rand merged with the Sperry Corporation, a manufacturer of guidance systems, servomechanisms, feedback controls and precision machinery, to form the Sperry Rand Corporation. After the merger, the company attempted to recapture the market with the UNIVAC II, which had a magnetic core memory and a storage capacity of between 2,000 and 10,000 characters. However, by the mid-50s the initiative had clearly passed to IBM, although many industry observers believed that the UNIVACs were technically superior to IBM computers. By the early 1960s IBM controlled 71 per cent of the computer market, with Sperry Rand a distant second at 10 per cent. The Patent Office finally issued a patent on the ENIAC in 1964, and Sperry Rand used this to put forward a claim to basic patent rights on the electronic digital computer. Honeywell, Inc., contested this claim, and the case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in 1971-1973. Honeywell was eventually upheld on all counts. The Sperry Rand Corporation was renamed the Sperry Corporation in July 1979. In 1986 as the result of a hostile takeover, it was absorbed by the Burroughs Corporation, which then changed its name to Unisys Corporation. The records of Sperry's Univac Division are an important source for the history of the American computer industry, from its beginnings into the 1970s. One of the largest record units is a separate 181 linear foot archive of documents from the Honeywell-Sperry Rand suit, including discovery of documents, depositions and trial transcripts. Since the suit revolved around the question of who invented the electronic digital computer, the case record contains extensive documentation on the formative years of the computer industry. There is a separate body of legal papers relating to patent infringement suits. The records generated by Technitrol v. Sperry Rand and Sperry Rand v. Control Data Corporation are of particular interest as they describe the history of Engineering Research Associates and some of the top secret research and development that ERA was doing for the Navy in the years immediately after World War II. The records of J. William v. Eckert, et al., describe National Cash Register's efforts to develop electronic computers during the 1930s and 40s. Public and Community Relations Dept. records include newsclippings and press release files, as well as copies of promotional brochures. There is also a typescript copy of the unpublished Sperry Univac history book, which was written during the late 1970s. Patent and licensing records include the files of patent attorney W. E. Cleaver and copies of domestic and foreign licensing agreements. Personnel Department records include correspondence files, as well as records of contract negotiations, arbitration, grievance, and National Labor Relations Board proceedings. The photographs are serviced by the Pictorial Collections Dept. They depict the development of the ENIAC, BINAC, and UNIVAC computers. There are also several photographs of the Atanasoff computer that were submitted as evidence during the Honeywell trial. The photographs of ENIAC are of particular interest, as they convey a sense of awe and mystery associated with the first digital computer. BINAC photos include overall views and close-ups of the various components. There are a large number of photographs of the UNIVAC I, II, and III systems, including component views and an album of flow charts and diagrams describing how the system operated. Also included is a photo of Walter Cronkite using the UNIVAC I on CBS News during the 1952 election. Other photographs in the archive include views of the LARC, the File Computer, the Scientific Computers (1103, 1105 and 1107), early solid state computers, and the specialized systems manufactured for the Navy and the Air Force. There are also about 500 photographs documenting the evolution of Remington Rand's typewriters from 1876 through the mid-1950s.