COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 14

STATISTICAL COMPUTATIONS
I almost became famous in the statistics business with my ability to use IBM card equipment to compute bi-serials, chi-squares, product-moment correlation, and other such things, before the big computers were programmed to do the job. They told me I was the first to be able to solve those problems using IBM cards and the 607 Electronic Calculating Punch, with, if I remember correctly, 56 characters of memory.

As had happened with the production control application at Chance Vought in Dallas, the process I came up with was so complicated that it was much easier for me to go to the IBM room and run the machines myself, rather than try to write instructions so a regular IBM operator could do the job.

As I remember, for the product-moment correlation formula, it was necessary to compute a portion of the formula and punch that partial answer in the cards, then rewire the control board, and complete the remainder of the formula. And on and on. I was both praised for my ability and willingness to operate the IBM equipment, and criticized for not doing the job in a more “normal” manner. That was a surprise to most everyone, including my boss. Just a few months later, someone programmed the big computers to do this very job, and that was the end of my fifteen minutes of fame.

Several times while someone with a Ph.D. and a big statistical contract to complete, or someone who had to complete a set of calculations for his doctoral dissertation, were being interviewed for employment at RAND, I was called in to see if I could understand their computation needs well enough so I could do the computing and let the poor applicant get on to something more useful. They always got a big kick out of the amount of (or lack thereof) my formal education. These are just a few examples of the “odds and ends” kind of jobs.

In more than one case I was mentioned in the dissertation as the one who helped with the calculations. I will always remember when one man opened the package containing his Ph.D. diploma from Harvard, and saw it was printed in Latin, he exclaimed, “All that work, and I can’t even read it!”