B chapter.indd - Charles Babbage Institute - University of Minnesota

Erwin Tomash Library
Berkeley, Edmund Callis Berkeley, Edmund Callis
devised and sold several relay computers and small
robots (Simon, Squee, Relay Moe, etc.) as educational
projects in kit form.
This work covers Boolean algebra and how it can be
used to describe circuits composed of tubes, relays, delay
lines and other devices.
Illustrations available:
Title page
B 138
[Berkeley, Edmund Callis (1909–1988)]
Geniacs: Simple electronic brain machines, and how
to make them. Also: manual for Geniac electric brain
construction kit No. 1.
Year: 1955
Place: New Haven
Publisher: Oliver Garfield
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Binding: original paper wrappers
Pagination: pp. 64
Size: 215x140 mm
In 1950, Berkeley Associates produced a small
educational computer known as Simon intended to teach
the basic principles of switching circuits. Because the
parts for Simon cost $300, it was decided to market it as
a kit. This report is the manual for the resulting Geniac
kit, which by 1955 sold for only $20. With it you could
produce a number of ultra-simple devices ranging from
a doorbell to a machine for converting from binary to
decimal. The introduction states that
We have had great help from several outstanding
computer men in the design of about one third
of the Geniac circuits … and regret that they feel
they have to remain anonymous.
Illustrations available:
Cover page
B 139
Berkeley, Edmund Callis (1909–1988)
Giant brains or machines that think.
Year: 1949
Place: New York
Publisher: John Wiley
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Binding: original cloth boards; with dust jacket
Pagination: pp. xvi, 270
Size: 212x138 mm
Reference: Ran ODC, p. 407
B 138
This volume was one of the first to popularize computers
and was a major reason for the association of brain with
computer. It covers all the major machines of those years
(differential analyzers, punched card machines, Aiken’s
machines, Bell Labs machines, ENIAC, etc.) and
speculates on what the future would bring. The book was
overly optimistic as to exactly what computers would
shortly be able to accomplish, but Berkeley insisted all
his life that he was correct and that it just would take
a little longer. He published fourteen other books and
continued to publish his Computers and Automation
(later renamed Computers and People) until his death.
In later life Berkeley became more interested in people
and anti-nuclear causes. Portents of this shift in interests
can be seen from the fact that the last chapters of this
book are devoted to social issues. In 1972, ACM honored
Berkeley as its founder at its 25th Anniversary Dinner.
His acceptance speech was a direct denunciation of those
in computing who worked on the killing devices used in
the Vietnam war, of computing companies that built such
horrors, and of ACM for ignoring this immorality. He
said that it was a gross neglect of responsibility that ACM
was not investigating whether computer applications
were good or evil and how computers could be used to
increase the good of society. Several prominent ACM
members, employees of the firms and government
agencies that Berkeley had identified, ostentatiously
walked out of the banquet room while he was speaking.
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