Integrator Unit from Bush Differential Analyzer

This wooden box with a glass front contains two of the six original integrators from the differential analyzer designed by Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) for use in the electrical engineering department at MIT. Built from 1927, the differential analyzer was a room-sized analog, mechanical computing device designed principally to integrate equations. Building on Bush's example, differential analyzers would be built in Europe as well as the United States. They required repositioning of components for each problem carried out, and proved slower and less flexible - though initially more reliable - than electronic computers.

After MIT had built improved differential anzlyzers, this one was moved to and used at Wayne University in Detroit. By 1956, it was no longer needed there, and given to the Smithsonian..

For related transaction, with other parts to the MIT differential analyzer, see 1983.3002. For a more complete differential analyzer, used at UCLA, see 1983.0023.

Reference:

Larry Owens, "Vannevar Bush and the Differential Analyzer: The Text and Context of an Early Computer," Technology and Culture, vol. 37, #1, 1986, pp. 63-95.

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