Synergy User Manual and Tutorial. - THE CORE MEMORY

Synergy User Manual and Tutorial
Mathematical Theory of Communication”, where he demonstrated that all information
sources have a “source rate” and all communication channels have a “capacity”, both
measurable in bits-per-second, and that the information can be transmitted over the
channel if and only if the capacity of the channel is not exceeded by the source rate. He
also published works related to cryptography and the reliability of relay circuits, both
with respect to transmission in noisy channels. xvii
George Stibitz, a Bell Labs researcher, created the first electromechanical circuit that
could control binary addition from old relays, batteries, flashlight bulbs, wires and tin
strips in 1937. He realized that Boolean logic could be used for electromechanical
telephone relays. He incorporated this binary adder (picture on left with Stibitz)
prototype in his Model K digital calculator. Over the next two years, Stibitz and his
associates at Bell Labs devised a machine to perform all four basic math operations on
complex numbers. It was initially called the Complex Number Calculator but was
renamed the Bell Labs Model Relay Computer (also known as the Bell Labs Model 1) in
1949. This machine is considered to be the world's first electronic digital computer. Its
electromechanical brain consisted of 450 telephone relays and 10 crossbar switches, and
three teletypewriters provided input to the machine. It could find the quotient of two
eight-place complex numbers in about 30 seconds. Stibitz brought one of the typewriters
to an American
Mathematical
Association
meeting in 1940
at Dartmouth
and performed
the world's first
demonstration
of remote
computing by
using phone
lines to
communicate
with the
Complex
Number
Calculator,
which was in
New York. xviii
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