These timelines delineate and describe the extensive computing history of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The origins of Los Alamos computing.
The Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.
The history of computing is too often depicted as the history of calculating machines. This focus tends to obscure the complex and varied contributions of the people who, through expertise, hard work, and ingenuity, created and continue to create computing history. This is particularly true for the contributions of women, which remain under-represented in the available histories, despite women playing a vital role in the development and advancement of the computing methods and technologies in use today. Women working as human computers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who received little credit for their pivotal role, provided astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other sciences with needed calculations as those fields became increasingly dependent on computing to function and advance. Women were also the first programmers, operators, and system analysts of electronic, general-purpose computers, when machine-based computing began to take center stage starting in the mid-twentieth century. Women have played no less a key role in computing at Los Alamos since the Manhattan Project, building and shaping the Lab's world-renowned computing capabilities to this day. This timeline lane highlights women who have been at the center of Los Alamos' long computing history, with the purpose of bringing greater recognition to all women who have contributed to the success of Los Alamos computing, and of computing everywhere.
The earliest labor-saving computing technologies at Los Alamos.
Espionage and the Soviet Bomb Project.
The use of IBM Punched-Card Accounting Machines (PCAM) at Los Alamos.
The First Generation of General-Purpose Electronic Computers at Los Alamos.
The role of computing in Soviet atomic-bomb development.
Networking before ARPANET.
One of the first programmers, Marjorie Devaney devoted a forty-year career to working at the forefront of scientific computing.
The first computer constructed at Los Alamos.
Mary Kircher brought her mathematical skills as a human computer to the early field of computer programming.
The advancement and divergence of computing in the United States and Soviet Union.
Mary Tsingou Menzel developed groundbreaking numerical simulations that inaugurated new fields of scientific research.
The era of IBM computing at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos leased 2 of the 19 IBM 701 computers constructed.
Emily Willbanks began her career as a human computer in the aerospace industry, before designing and programming some of LANL’s most ground- breaking technologies.
Los Alamos utilized 3 IBM 704 computers in the Late-1950s.
The last Lab-built general-purpose computer.
Western and Soviet computing in the tumultuous 1960s.
“I find the work to be exciting and challenging, because we are continually trying to make our models explain experiments, and then help design state-of- the-art devices.”
Stretch was a collaboration between IBM and Los Alamos. Stretch spawned the 7090 and 7094 computers, with Los Alamos purchasing two of each.
The Control Data Corporation Era at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos operated four CDC 6600 supercomputers between the Mid-1960s and the Mid-1970s.
Starting as a keypunch operator, JoAnn Olivas became a team leader for the Document Preparation Team in the 1980s.
The origins of Los Alamos computer networking.
A US-military-funded project that had far-reaching impacts on computer networking the world over.
Los Alamos purchased four CDC 7600s in the Early 1970s.
De-escalation of Cold War tensions, and the stagnating Soviet system.
Cathy Stallings began work at Los Alamos as a computer operator, and transitioned into providing essential networking capabilities for LANL computer users.
From a word processor, to an associate group leader in the Los Alamos Computing Division, Virginia Romero merged technical knowledge with cutting-edge representations of user data.
The first computer network at Los Alamos.
Starting as a part-time employee, Rita Sandoval brought LANL’s revolutionary data-storage system to the broader HPC community.
The rise of remote access on the Los Alamos ICN.
The era of Control Data Corporation supercomputers at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos evaluated the first Cray-1 in 1976, and ultimately purchased five Cray-1 supercomputers.
A Los Alamos dietician turned programmer for the Computing Division.
Minicomputers enabled big capabilities on the ICN.
From a programmer to a leader in a cutting-edge Los Alamos computer-science research center.
CFS was a well-designed, long-lived storage solution at LANL.
A technical writer and editor who brought greater clarity and a wider understanding of LANL’s scientific and technical research.
Invasion of Minicomputers, Workstations, and Personal Computers.
Decline of the Soviet Union, and a last-ditch attempt to save it with personal computing.
Debbie Ortiz ensured that the complex computing systems at Los Alamos remained operational, and interfaced successfully with the Lab’s custom networking environment.
Emmy Hopson joined Los Alamos as an electronics technician in 1980, and ensured that LANL’s complex, largely custom network remained operational.
The HSPI was an early step in standardized HPC networking.
A programmer who focused on improving the output quality of LANL’s supercomputers.
The “Internet” era began with a military-funded collection of interconnected networks.
The first multi-processor production supercomputer at LANL.
A computer scientist and programmer who created and improved software utilities used at Los Alamos and across the US Nuclear Weapons Complex.
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