JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Here’s a terrific little ad that appeared for RCA electronics in the November 1951 issue of Radio & Television News (“the Radio-Electronic Engineering edition”).  The main article of interest–and what brought me to this journal in the beginning–was the two-page story “Analogue Cumputors [sic] Solve Complex Problems” about the differential analyzer (the Bush machine I reckon), thermal analyzer, and electric differential analyzer  at UCLA, and which was the main title and illustration on the cover of the magazine.

I could not find “cumputor” in the OED, though I did find “computor” (as a person who computes or calculates) which came into recorded being in 1669. (“Told by some nice computors of national glory”, H. Walpole Let. 18 June in Corr. (1954) XVIII. 463.) “Computer” occurs a little earlier in 1613, found in another very quotable quote: “I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number.”, (‘R. B.’ Yong Mans Gleanings). 

This is a short article of only a few pages and a lot of pictures, but that spelling of “cumputor” does not occur in the article, though the word “computer” does. Apparently “cumputor” is a simple typo on the cover of the magazine.