Engineering Research Associates

Engineering Research Associates (often given as the acronym, ERA), an early computer company, stated from a team set up the U.S. Navy early in World War II to build devices to help in cryptanalysis of both Japanese and German ciphers. After the war, ERA was set up to keep the team together, and operating. ERA, in need of capital for expansion, was sold to Remington Rand in 1952, and became part (in name, but not, initially, in organization - a source of many troubles) of the newly-named Remington Rand Univac (and successors).

Among their products were the famous ERA 1101 and ERA 1103.

In 1957, a large group of one-time ERA personnel (including Seymour Cray), motivated in part by the problematic environment within Remington Rand, left, and founded what eventually became Control Data Corporation.

Further reading

• Arthur L. Norberg, Computers and Commerce: A Study of Technology and Management at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, Engineering Research Associates, and Remington Rand, 1946-1957, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2005
• David E. Lundstrom, A Few Good Men from Univac, MIT Press, July 1987 - excellent work which covers the entire story, from the ERA side
• Charles J. Murray, The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and the Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1997 - the first several chapters cover ERA
• The Staff of Engineering Research Associates, Inc., High Speed Computing Devices, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950 - one of the very first books ever published about electronic computing hardware (when it was all vacuum tube-based, of course)

External links

• VIP Club - Information Technology (IT) Pioneers - contains a wealth of ERA-related content
  • George A. Champine, The First Computer Company - chapter 3 of a planned book, Sperry Univac - The First Computer Company (which, sadly, seems never to have appeared); covers, in detail, ERA's formation, and the 1101, 1103, etc
• ERA Magnetic Storage Systems
• Introducing the ERA 1101
• The ERA Computation Center - from shortly after their purchase by Remington Rand