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Real-time for the First Time

September 20, 2014

Before the advent of computers, researchers had to sift through data by hand. In 1962, scientist Carl Bowin installed the first computer on a WHOI ship, an IBM “1620” to analyze gravity measurements in real-time inside in a special air conditioned room aboard R/V Chain. It was so expensive Bowin rented it rather than buying it. IBM officials were doubtful the computer would survive at sea, but the machine performed successfully. Bowin said he felt a “thrilling sense of importance” when he saw the computer’s first at-sea printout. By 1969, computers become standard equipment aboard WHOI ships.(Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)