"Saluting the Moose" Radio Broadcast (3.3mb MP3 audio file)

Birthplace of the World's First Business Computer - The Norwalk Hour* Remington Rand's First Computer - A Short History by W.B.Wenning Birthplace - Notes Specific to Development in Rowayton Birthplace - A Time Line by W.B.Wenning and Eric Rambusch The Computer Age Began in a Barn - The New York Times, March 29, 1998 Computer Pioneers - The Darien News-Review,* April 9, 1998 Computer Pioneers - The Norwalk Weekly Life & Times, April 2, 1998* Memories of Electronic Dawn - The Norwalk Hour* The History of Computing *Slight editing applied to correct errors of fact

The Engineers Get Together to...
Look Back at the Future

By Francis X. Fay
Hour Senior Writer
Friday, October 25, 1996
Courtesy of The Norwalk Hour and Francis X. Fay

Engineers responsible for developing three of the most economically efficient business computers of their time reminisced for six hours recently at the Rowayton Community Center where it all began.

Eight men, who labored on the Remington Rand 409 created in 1951, the first computer designed specifically for business applications, the Univac 60/120 launched in 1953 and the Univac 1004 developed in 1962, filled a blank space in computer history known only to them and a few associates.

"I have checked all the guys in the computer history business, and none of them have knowledge about two of the machines you've told me about today, said Dr. Colin Burke, history professor at the University of Maryland, who attended to gain information for a book about Remington Rand.

"What you've done, gentleman, by coming here today is to protect your legacy,” said Erik H. Rambusch, information systems management consultant and president of the sponsoring Rowayton Historical Society. "You have transformed oral history in this tape-recorded session that will become part of the written record of the information-technology industry."

Although much is known about the 1004, its creators were surprised to learn their years of work on the 409 and 60/120 had been forgotten. A couple of the men displayed scrapbooks filled with photos and clippings confirming their successes in company news publications dating back almost 50 years.

"It's hard to believe there isn't something out there somewhere on these machines," said William B. Wenning, now of Old Lyme, youngest of the octet at 68.

Wenning showed a time line he created for the period after Remington Rand purchased the James A. Farrell estate in 1944. It indicated that engineering research on the 409 transferred to the Community Center (originally the Farrell estate's stable and then known as "the barn") in 1947 after the company moved its research component from Brooklyn, N.Y. Work continued until 1951 when engineers had completed design of the 409, and were transferred back to the main research and development plant at 333 Wilson Ave., South Norwalk where the manufacturing phase was begun. No engineers would work in the barn again until 1961 when they began designing the Univac 1004.

Retired Army Gen. Leslie R. Groves, who had used a two-team competitive approach in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb during World War II, did the same in developing the 409 after joining Remington Rand following the war. One team led by Loring P. Crosman worked in what is now the Rowayton Library section of the building, while another team directed by Joseph A. Brustman occupied what is now the Community Center portion of the building, the former stable.

"There was a wall between the two teams that went right through the building about where the children's library is," said M. James Marin of 21 Woodchuck Lane, a mechanical designer on the 409. "My work station was a former horse stall right about in the middle of the reading room. The place still smelled of horses when I started working here in December of '49. Marin left Remington Rand in 1955 but returned in 1960 to lead the package design for the Univac 1004, which earned him a U.S. patent.

"I was very proud the day they had a party for the Univac 1004 team, and we brought our families in to see what we'd been working on for a year, Marin said. "I was happy my family heard my name mentioned that day"

The 1004 combined reading, processing and printing in one highspeed unit that was so efficient that several thousand units were sold worldwide.

Michael A. Norelli Jr., who came from Albany, N.Y., for the session, worked at what was then known as "the barn" for several months in 1950-51 before moving to the larger Remington Rand facility at 333 Wilson Ave. in 1954. He returned to the company in 1960 as a senior engineer.

"What I remember best is the 1004 was the first in Univac history to go through the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) testing without a problem," Norelli said. "Jim and I had one shot to do it, and we did it all in one year."

Jacob A. Randmer of 14 Exeter Lane, Wilton, had been brought over from Germany before the war on a contract with Remington Rand to work on storage tubes and other electronic devices after graduating from the Institute of Technology in Berlin. He was systems engineering director when the company left Norwalk in 1962 for Blue Bell, Pa.

"There was nothing technologically unique about the 1004, but what made it so successful was what it did and what it cost," said Randmer, at 80 the oldest of the former associates. "The 1004 was all transistorised and had a core memory with an integrated card reader and printer. It was also most reliable for the state of the art at the time."

The biggest thrill for A. Gordon Chamberlain of Cos Cob was delivering the first operational 409 to the IRS building in Baltimore, Md. in 1952.

"We put it in a moving van and when we got across the Hudson River, we had a state police escort all the way down the New Jersey Turnpike that hadn't yet opened to the public. When we got to Baltimore, we had to put it into the building through an opening in the wall on the second floor. We had more trouble getting it in the building than starting it."

The 409 was the first electromechanical computer of stand alone, modular design that allowed replacement of parts in modules.

David W. Bernard, a Norwalk native now living in Sherborn, Mass., came to the barn in 1948 as a development engineer on the Brustman team. After a service tour during the Korean War, he later became a department manager.

John Carmichael of the Riverside section of Greenwich, who learned about communications as a U.S. Marine during the war, came to the company in 1951.

"I remember how thrilled I was when we took the first 409 out of the Butler building (behind the Wilson Avenue plant) and loaded it on a truck," he said.

Carmichael would later be one of those who took the first Univac 60/120 to an industrial fair in Barcelona, Spain. The Univac name was used to identify the successor to the 409 because by that time Remington Rand had acquired the Univac Company of Philadelphia and preferred to market its products under what had become a generic name for the early computers.

"It was the first electronic machine in Europe, and I never really appreciated how far ahead we were in America until that experience and it made me very proud to be part of this operation."

"You hadn't smoked for a year before you went over there and when you came back you were smoking like a steam engine," kidded Chamberlain.

Alfred L. Henchcliffe, a Greenwich native now living in Southbury, worked in the barn during 1949 and 1950 and was later was a demonstrator for the third version of the 409 at the main plant.

"I remember one time Jim Rand (the president) came in a I stopped momentarily, but he said: 'Go on. You're doing something more important than I am.' "

Henchcliffe would become a test engineer at Burndy and then Framatone before returning in 1982.

Wenning returned to the barn in August of 1961 as program manager for the Univac 1004.

"We had 185 people in this place." Wenning said to disbelieving listeners. "We had six to eight engineers in 10 by 10 cubicles. They were upstairs in both wings, in the basement and all across the main floor. I've seen pictures of a drafting room with 60 people in it."

Wenning was on the second floor in the wing later used as the apartment for the late 6th District caretaker Joseph Cheh and his family. Cheh had been an employee of the Farrell family and lived in the gatehouse after Remington Rand bought the property.

"Joe was one of our support people when I was there," said Wenning, who a decade ago married a niece of Cheh. He would later leave what became Sperry Rand after the move to Pennsylvania and become an assistant to the president of Pitney Bowes in Norwalk and Stamford.

When Wenning came back to the barn in 1961 after having been at the main plant for a decade, he said: "It felt like home. I saluted the moose and went right to work." (He was referring to a moose head over the fireplace in the main room of the community center that has been there since the days of the Farrell dominion.) However, he and the rest of his group were unaware that corporate developments would soon move the research group out of the barn once again and the entire operation out of the city.

Sperry Rand would dissolve into Sperry Univac and Sperry Univac would eventually become part of the Unisys Corporation .

"After all I heard today, I think we are now safe in saying that the Rowayton Community Center is the birthplace of the world's first business computer." said Rambusch.