I fondly remember the experience of having a desktop Wang calculator that could calculate logarithms when I was an intern at the Council of Economic Advisers in 1972. Hard to imagine that only three decades earlier, Paul Samuelson had to hustle to find funds to pay for access to an IBM punch card calculating machine that would multiply, multiply I say! A casual search of the internet turned up the Wikipedia article on the first IBM calculating machine that could multiply, the IBM 601. I am guessing that must be the machine in question since the IBM 602 (that could do division) was only introduced in 1946.
Source: IBM 601 multiplying punch. By Sandstein – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
________________
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science
Cambridge, Mass
February 20, 1941
Mr. J. R. Killian
Room 3-208
M.I.T.
Dear Mr. Killian:
As I mentioned in our conversation of yesterday, the Department is badly in need of about $150.00 to defray expenses involved in the use of punch card computing services. The Institute’s Hollerith machine can be used for part of the work, but since this machine does not multiply we need to supplement it from the equipment available at the International Business Machine Co. The money will be required to cover the rental of machines, cost of cards and to hire a trained operator. The work arises out of research problems in business cycles in which Professor Samuelson is engaged.
Since the Department funds are at a very low ebb, I should be extremely grateful if you could charge this expense to any fund that may be available and appropriate.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]
Ralph E. Freeman
REF:d
Source: MIT Archives. MIT. Office of The President, 1930-1958. Box 93, Folder “1940-1944. Freeman, R.E.”.
Image Source: Paul A. Samuelson, fellowship awarded 1948 . John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.