Article on India's first indigenously developed analog and digital computers and a knowledgeable comment on it
The Fascinating Story of How India’s First Indigenous Computers Were Built, https://www.thebetterindia.com/119136/the-fascinating-story-of-how-indias-first-indigenous-computers-were-built/, dated 25th Oct. 2017.
Ravi: The above article talks about the role of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasanta_Chandra_Mahalanobis, and Homi Bhabha, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha, under first (post-independence) Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's directions for developing India's scientific (and technological) capabilities, in developing indigenous computers in India. The article states that Mahalanobis and Bhabha shared a professional rivalry.
Mahalanobis founded the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Statistical_Institute, in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1931 (formally in 1932). He got a team to work on creating the first Indian indigenous computer, an analog computer, which they achieved in 1953 by creating a computer that could solve linear equations with 10 variables and related problems. Samarendra Kumar Mitra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarendra_Kumar_Mitra, is viewed as a key person of this team. The (betterindia.com) article shows a pic of Mitra demonstrating this computer to Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru.
Later there was a race between Mahalanobis led group and Bhabha led group to create India's first indigenously-developed digital computer.
Mahalanobis got ISI to tie up with Jadavpur university in Bengal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadavpur_University to do this work. Bhabha headed Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Institute_of_Fundamental_Research, and had his own team working on this goal. Bhabha's team won this race by creating TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFRAC) in 1959. It was formally christened TIFRAC by PM Nehru in 1962. The (betterindia.com) article shows a pic of the computer being demonstrated to Nehru.
A correspondent to whom I had mailed the article and who is a retired Indian computer scientist, wrote (slightly edited; he was OK with public sharing of comment in this edited manner):
Most interesting article! Some errors too but not important.
The caption under the photograph of TIFRAC talks about MS Narasimhan but it was R Narasimhan who led the team to build the machine. I am not even sure the photograph is of RN though I have seen other photographs of the occasion with him in it.
TIFRAC actually ran real scientific programs (as I pointed out in my book, "Digital Republic, India's Rise to IT Power") but ISIJU was too unreliable for that, though it was the first transistor computer in India.
The Bhabha-IBM link was not important. Bhabha asked von Neumann of Princeton for help when the TIFRAC team was stuck trying to design the control unit of the machine. There was no IBM connection with TIFR but I have seen a letter from the then general manager of IBM India (someone called Mitra) offering to sell TIFR a second-hand computer at a reduced price. This was the first example of IBM trying to bring in second-hand computers into India, a policy from which they did well in the late 1960s and 1970s when they brought in old IBM 1401 and IBM 1620 computers and reconditioned and sold them at the original selling price!
The early history given in my book is more accurate. Mahalanobis managed to persuade Nehru to let him import two Russian machines for use in ISI in the late 1950s. Bhabha got Nehru's approval to import a far more powerful CDC-3600 into India in 1964 (the TIFR team was very anti-IBM).
---- end correspondent response ----
Ravi: CDC stands for Control Data Corporation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation, a USA based computer manufacturer in the past. CDC-3600 is one of its computers with some info about it, including a pic, being available here: https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/supercomputer/3600.
Ravi: The above article talks about the role of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prasanta_Chandra_Mahalanobis, and Homi Bhabha, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_J._Bhabha, under first (post-independence) Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's directions for developing India's scientific (and technological) capabilities, in developing indigenous computers in India. The article states that Mahalanobis and Bhabha shared a professional rivalry.
Mahalanobis founded the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Statistical_Institute, in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1931 (formally in 1932). He got a team to work on creating the first Indian indigenous computer, an analog computer, which they achieved in 1953 by creating a computer that could solve linear equations with 10 variables and related problems. Samarendra Kumar Mitra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarendra_Kumar_Mitra, is viewed as a key person of this team. The (betterindia.com) article shows a pic of Mitra demonstrating this computer to Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru.
Later there was a race between Mahalanobis led group and Bhabha led group to create India's first indigenously-developed digital computer.
Mahalanobis got ISI to tie up with Jadavpur university in Bengal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadavpur_University to do this work. Bhabha headed Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Institute_of_Fundamental_Research, and had his own team working on this goal. Bhabha's team won this race by creating TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Calculator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFRAC) in 1959. It was formally christened TIFRAC by PM Nehru in 1962. The (betterindia.com) article shows a pic of the computer being demonstrated to Nehru.
A correspondent to whom I had mailed the article and who is a retired Indian computer scientist, wrote (slightly edited; he was OK with public sharing of comment in this edited manner):
Most interesting article! Some errors too but not important.
The caption under the photograph of TIFRAC talks about MS Narasimhan but it was R Narasimhan who led the team to build the machine. I am not even sure the photograph is of RN though I have seen other photographs of the occasion with him in it.
TIFRAC actually ran real scientific programs (as I pointed out in my book, "Digital Republic, India's Rise to IT Power") but ISIJU was too unreliable for that, though it was the first transistor computer in India.
The Bhabha-IBM link was not important. Bhabha asked von Neumann of Princeton for help when the TIFRAC team was stuck trying to design the control unit of the machine. There was no IBM connection with TIFR but I have seen a letter from the then general manager of IBM India (someone called Mitra) offering to sell TIFR a second-hand computer at a reduced price. This was the first example of IBM trying to bring in second-hand computers into India, a policy from which they did well in the late 1960s and 1970s when they brought in old IBM 1401 and IBM 1620 computers and reconditioned and sold them at the original selling price!
The early history given in my book is more accurate. Mahalanobis managed to persuade Nehru to let him import two Russian machines for use in ISI in the late 1950s. Bhabha got Nehru's approval to import a far more powerful CDC-3600 into India in 1964 (the TIFR team was very anti-IBM).
---- end correspondent response ----
Ravi: CDC stands for Control Data Corporation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation, a USA based computer manufacturer in the past. CDC-3600 is one of its computers with some info about it, including a pic, being available here: https://www2.cisl.ucar.edu/supercomputer/3600.
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