Rice Institute Computer Project records

Collection

Identifier: UA 0087

Staff Only

Finding aid note: Stored offsite at the Library Service Center and require 24-hour notice for retrieval. Please contact the Woodson Research Center at 713-348-2586 or woodson@rice.edu for more information.

Scope and Contents

Records of the first computer developed at Rice University (then Rice Institute) including correspondence, memoranda, manuals, news clippings, photographs, and drawings.

Dates

Creation: 1956 - 1996
Creation: Majority of material found within 1956 - 1974

Creator

Rice University (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Stored offsite at the Library Service Center and require 24-hour notice for retrieval. Please contact the Woodson Research Center at 713-348-2586 or woodson@rice.edu for more information.

Access Restrictions

This material is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Permission to publish from this material must be facilitated through the Woodson Research Center.

Biographical / Historical

In 1956, three Rice University faculty members, Zevi Salsburg, John Kilpatrick, and Larry Biedenharn, brought supercomputing to the school for the first time in the form of the R1 computer. While it wasn’t the first computer at Rice, it was the university’s first large computational research computer. At the time, the researchers couldn’t simply go out and purchase a mammoth supercomputer; they literally had to design and build the R1 themselves. The R1 took up a large amount of space on the second floor of the Abercrombie Engineering Building.

Extent

7 Linear Feet (6 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection contains records of the first computer developed at Rice University (then Rice Institute) including correspondence, memoranda, manuals, news clippings, photographs, and drawings.