MOORE SCHOOL LECTURES | THEORY AND TECHNIQUES FOR DESIGN OF ELECTRONIC DIGITAL COMPUTERS, LECTURES GIVEN AT THE MOORE SCHOOL 8 JULY 1946-31 AUGUST 1946. PHILADELPHIA: UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, MOORE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, SEPTEMBER 10 AND NOVEMBER 1, 1947; JUNE 30, 1948

From the Computing History Collection of Serge Roube, via his Estate

MOORE SCHOOL LECTURES

Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers, Lectures Given at the Moore School 8 July 1946-31 August 1946. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Moore School of Engineering, September 10 and November 1, 1947; June 30, 1948

Volumes 1-3 (only, of 4), 4to (275 x 215 mm), mimeographed, photographic plates and other figures. Original wrappers; backstrips fraying, coating abraded on right edge of front cover of vol 3, and in a few other spots. 

A SCARCE SET OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE MOORE SCHOOL LECTURES 1-33, A PIVOTAL CATALYST IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN COMPUTER

The Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers lectures, more commonly known as the Moore School lectures, were held from July 8th to August 31st, 1946, at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Held under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research, U.S. Navy, and Ordnance Department, U.S. Army, this special course was designed to examine the current state of the field of electronic computation, and engender progress through an examination of all facets of computation, including mathematical computation by hand, electro-mechanical computers (the Harvard Mark I), the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), and the proposed new generation of stored-program electronic computers. 

Forty lectures were delivered over an 8-week period, many of the which were given by the principal developers of ENIAC: J. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly and Herman Goldstine, while other speakers included Howard Aiken of Harvard, Arthur Burks of the Moore School, Douglas Hartree of Cambridge, George Stibitz of Bell Labs, and John von Neumann. Attendance was by invitation only, and selected “students” were vanguards in the development of computing devices, including Jay Forrester of MIT, Cuthbert Hurd of IBM, Claude Shannon of Bell Labs and Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge.

The ideas presented during the Moore School lectures profoundly influenced the direction of computer development for many years in their wake. When the Lectures were reprinted in 1985 as part of the Babbage series for the History of Computing, Campbell-Kelly and White stated in their introduction that “The printed dissemination of the course material was considered highly important at a time when almost nothing on the subject existed … Only the original participants received copies, and a few copies found their way into university and technical libraries."

PROVENANCE:

War Department of Philadelphia (accession stamps dated 1949 to vols 2 and 3) — Lawrence Freedman (rubberstamp to front free endpaper of vol 1)