U.S. Government Computing Collection,

ca. 1945-1990

CBI 63

COLLECTION SIZE: 40.2 cubic feet (41 boxes)

CREATOR: Charles Babbage Institute

BY: Prepared by Bruce H. Bruemmer and Kevin D. Corbitt, December 1997; revised by Matthew James Buell, December 2001; revised by David P. Berge, July 2002.

ACQUISITION: This collection represents an accumulation of records donated to the Charles Babbage Institute from a number of sources beginning in 1983.

ACCESS: Access to the collection is unrestricted.

COPYRIGHT: All of the records in this collection were produced and/or published by government agencies. Questions about reproducing material in this collection should be directed to the agency responsible for producing the record(s).

PREFERRED CITATION: U.S. Government Computing Collection (CBI 63), Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.  Document level bibliographic information should be included when appropriate.  Consult the CBI archivist for further information.

Historical Note

Prompted by the wartime need for rapid, complex mathematical calculations, the United States government became heavily involved computer research and development during World War II.  Government agencies including the US Navy, the National Bureau of Standards, and NASA continued to sponsor computer research and development projects in the post-war period, many still related to military applications.  Early government investment in computer technologies provided a basis for the nascent computer industry.  Government agencies and the research institutions with which they collaborated generated a wide variety of reports, manuals, and other documentation.

Scope and Content Note

The U.S. Government Computing Collection contains government publications, technical reports, descriptions and manuals of computer hardware, software, systems, installations and projects. All of the documents were produced by some agency of the government, and in most cases the documents are concerned with work performed specifically by these agencies. However, some of the documents concern non-government produced items, such as a survey of industry minicomputers. Also, there are cases of joint projects between government, private industry, and universities (e.g., the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was operated by Union Carbide for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission). Other CBI collections should be consulted in the case of joint projects (see Computer Product Manuals Collection, Computer Product Literature Collection, and Academic Computing Collections).

Arrangement of the Collection

Materials are neither alphabetical nor chronological.  The box and folder list includes basic bibliographic information for each document in the collection: a document title, date of publication, and any available information about the government agency that produced the document.  Researchers should use the Edit-Find feature on their browser to search the box and folder list to locate materials of interest.

Index Terms

United States. Air Force

Air Force Avionics Laboratory.

Air Force Cambridge Research Center (U.S.)

United States. Air Force. Directorate of Computers.

Rome Air Development Center.

United States. Army

Argonne National Laboratory.

U. S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory.

Defense Documentation Center (U.S.)

United States. General Services Administration

United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Scientific and Technical Information Division

United States. National Bureau of Standards

United States. Navy

David W. Taylor Model Basin.

Naval Ordnance Laboratory (White Oak, Md.)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

United States. Office of Naval Research

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.)

Ada (Computer program language)

Computer industry -- United States -- History -- Sources.

Computers -- United States -- History -- Sources.

United States -- Data processing.

Data transmission systems -- United States.

Defense contracts -- United States.

FORTRAN (Computer program language)

NASTRAN (Computer program)

Programming languages (Electronic computers)

Box and folder list