Image of the Day

Electronics equipment in R/V Chain's main lab.

May 28, 2008

The Good Old Days?

Electronic equipment and a snarl of wires fills a lab on the research vessel Chain in February 1966. WHOI's first at-sea computer was an IBM installed on Chain in 1962; a special air conditioning unit was built to keep that equipment cool, making the computer room a rather popular spot on cruises to tropical waters. Later, Hewlett Packard invented the 2216A for WHOI, touting it as the company's "first go-anywhere, do-anything computer." (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)