B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S A U G U S T 2 0 2 3 36 "THE FIRST TREATISE ON HOW TO BUILD AN ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTER": HIGH-SPEED COMPUTING DEVICES, 1950 FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREWORD 36. (ENGINEERING RESEARCH ASSOCIATES) TOMPKINS, C.B., Supervisor. High-Speed Computing Devices. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. $4500 First edition of "the first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer," a veritable "cookbook" for designing both analog and digital computing machines, presentation copy inscribed by H.T. Engstrom, Vice-President of Engineering Research Associates and author of the foreword, on the front free endpaper: "To Dr H.H. Campaigne with sincere regards H.T. Engstrom." Both Engstrom and Campaigne played pivotal roles in advancing signals intelligence during the Second World War, and worked together at OP-20-G and the NSA. "The first treatise on how to build an electronic digital computer. It provided a 'cookbook' describing the available ingredients and how they worked for both digital and analog computers. Because it also explained the principles involved and gave examples, it was extremely useful… There were chapters on different types of computing machines, including desk calculators, punched-card systems, analog computing systems, and large-scale electronic digital computers. The bibliographies ending each chapter were the most complete available for the American books, reports, and journal articles published through 1949" (Hook & Norman). Charles Brown Tompkins, credited on the title page as the "supervisor," wrote most of the text. Dr. Howard T. Engstrom (1902-62) was co-creator of the UNIVAC at Remington Rand, where he served as vicepresident before joining the NSA in 1956 as associate director of the R&D team; he later served as deputy director. Engstrom first crossed paths with the data processing pioneer Dr. Howard Herbert Campaigne (1910-88) during the Second World War, at OP-20-G, the US Navy's signals intelligence and cryptanalysis group. After the war, Engstrom and Campaigne overlapped professionally again at the NSA, where Campaigne worked for many years in a variety of development activities. In 1946 Campaigne and James Pendergast co-authored a classified paper which convinced the Navy to seriously advance their computer technology with specific application to cryptologic problems. He also influenced IBM in choosing binary code for their computers. At the time of this book's publication, Engstrom was vice-president of ERA; Remington Rand acquired ERA two years later. Hook & Norman, Origins of Cyberspace 584. Tomash & Williams E14. Oral History Interview with Howard Campaigne, NSA-OH-14-83, 29 June 1983, Annapolis, MD, conducted by Robert D. Farley of the NSA. Four pages of previous owner's notes and calculations laid in. Cloth with light shelf-wear, interior clean, near-fine; dust jacket with shallow chipping to corners, a few small snags on flap folds, extremely good.
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