Engineering Research Associates, commonly known as ERA, was a pioneering computer firm from the 1950s. They became famous for their numerical computers, but as the market expanded they became better known for their drum memory systems. They were eventually purchased by Remington Rand and merged into their UNIVAC department. Many of the company founders later left to form Control Data Corporation. // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... Magnetic Drum from a DEUCE computer The Magnetic Drum was invented by G. Taushek in 1932 in Austria. ... Remington Rand was an early American computer manufacturer, best known as the original maker of the UNIVAC, and now part of Unisys. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Control Data Corporation, or CDC, was one of the pioneering supercomputer firms. ...

The ERA team started as a group of scientists and engineers working for the US Navy during WWII on code-breaking, a division known as the Communications Supplementary Activity - Washington (CSAW). After the war budgets were cut for most military projects, and the Navy was particularly worried that the CSAW team would spread to various companies and they would lose their ability to quickly design new machines. Navy brass started looking for companies that would take the team on "whole", and eventually found a Chase Aircraft glider subsidiary in St. Paul, Minnesota who was about to lose all their contracts. The owner was told nothing about the work the team would do, but after being visited by a series of increasingly high ranking naval officers, he knew "something" was up and decided to give it a try. William Norris headed up the new team, now known as ERA. The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ... German soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad World War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the worlds nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. ... Gliders are un-powered heavier-than-air aircraft. ... State capitol building in Saint Paul Saint Paul is the capital and second-largest city of the state of Minnesota in the United States of America. ... For other people named William Norris see William Norris (disambiguation). ...

During the "early" years the company took on any engineering contracting that came their way, but they were soon awarded a new Navy contract. "Task 13", to develop what was to be the first stored program computer. The machine, known as the Atlas, used drum memory and was delivered in 1950. ERA then started to sell it commercially as the ERA 1101, 1101 being binary for 13. Even before delivery of the Atlas, the Navy asked for a more powerful machine using both Williams tubes and drum memory, a machine known as the Atlas II. Work began in 1950 and the completed Atlas II was delivered to the NSA in September 1953. ERA looked to selling similar machines to a number of customers, but at about this time they became embroiled in a lengthy series of political maneuvering in Washington, in which the Navy was criticized for running ERA as if it were their own private company. The resulting fight left the company drained, both financially and emotionally. In 1952 they were purchased by Remington Rand, largely as a result of these problems. The so-called von Neumann architecture is a model for a computing machine that uses a single storage structure to hold both the set of instructions on how to perform the computation and the data required or generated by the computation. ... Magnetic Drum from a DEUCE computer The Magnetic Drum was invented by G. Taushek in 1932 in Austria. ... The UNIVAC 1101, or ERA 1101, was a computer system designed by Engineering Research Associates (ERA) and built by the Remington Rand corporation in the 1950s. ... The Williams tube or (more accurately) the Williams-Kilburn tube (after Freddie Williams and coworker Tom Kilburn) was a cathode ray tube used to store electronic data. ... The National Security Agency / Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is a United States government agency responsible for both the collection and analysis of message communications, and for the security of government communications against similar agencies elsewhere. ... September is the ninth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... 1953 is a common year starting on Thursday. ...

Remington Rand already had a computing division however, after they had purchased the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1950. For a time the two companies operated as independent units within Remington, with ERA focusing on scientific and military customers, while Eckert-Mauchly's UNIVACs were sold to business customers. However in 1955 Remington merged with Sperry Corporation to become Sperry Rand. Both ERA and Eckert-Mauchly were folded into a single division as Sperry-UNIVAC. Much of ERA's work was dropped, while their drum technology was used in newer UNIVAC machines. A number of employees were not happy with this move and decamped to form Control Data Corporation under the leadership of Norris. The Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) was founded by J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly, and was incorporated on December 22, 1947. ... The Remington Rand years (1950 to 1955) Calculating devices UNIVAC 60 UNIVAC 120 Computer systems UNIVAC I UNIVAC 1101 UNIVAC 1102 UNIVAC 1103 Peripherals Storage UNISERVO tape drive The Sperry Rand years (1955 to 1978) Calculating devices UNIVAC 1004 UNIVAC 1005 Computer systems Embedded systems AN/USQ-17 – the Navy... Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the twentieth century. ... The American company Univac began as the business computer division of Remington Rand formed by the purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC) in 1950. ... Control Data Corporation, or CDC, was one of the pioneering supercomputer firms. ...

But the core of the ERA team lived on. Eventually they were moved to a new research division where they had considerably more freedom. They worked primarily on computing systems for military use, and they pioneered a number of early command and control and guidance systems for ICBMs and satellites. There they were known as the Military Division, which was later renamed the Aerospace Division. A Minuteman III missile soars after a test launch. ...

In the late 1970s, a number of Rand employees purchased the ERA name and started a small government contracting firm. In 1989, the "new" ERA became a wholly-owned subsidiary of E-Systems. In 1995, it was merged into the Melpar division of its parent and the name once again disappeared. A subsidiary is a corporation controlled by another. ... Melpar, Inc. ...

References

• Erwin Tomash and Arnold A. Cohen, "The Birth of an ERA: Engineering Research Associates, Inc. 1945-1955," Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 1, No. 2, Oct. 1979.

• A Few Good Men from Univac, 1987, David Lundstrom, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-62075-8

This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

External links

• Thorough description of ERA's history