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http://cee.mit.edu/index.pl?id=3892&isa=Category&op=show
MIT Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering

     When Prof. John Wilbur '26, '28, '33 constructed a mechanical calculator 
about the size of a small car in 1936, MIT immediately issued a breathless 
press release: "Once the conditions of the equations have been set on 
the machine, a single movement of the mechanisms carries out in a few 
seconds mathematical processes that might require hours or days by ordinary 
methods." Its ability to solve up to nine simultaneous linear equations 
to 1% accuracy made it heavily in demand, since at the time "solving one 
single example could otherwise take a full day's strenuous effort. For 
large structures and for extensive electrical networks, this limitation 
posed a serious obstacle to successful design," wrote Prof. Emeritus Hank 
Paynter '44, '49, '51. 

Losing a one-ton machine with more than 13,000 parts, including 600 ft 
of steel tape and 1000 ball-bearing pulleys seems difficult, considering 
the lack of closet space in Bldg. 1. Yet the Wilbur Simultaneous Calculator 
disappeared without a trace over 20 years ago, after having obstructed 
the hallway outside of Rm. 1-390 for many years. Nobody at the MIT Museum, 
Boston Museum of Science, or the Boston Computer Museum has any clue what 
happened to it. Therefore the Newsletter editor was astonished to see 
photos of an almost exact replica of the machine in a magazine article 
about the Tokyo Museum of Science. 

Correspondence with Seishi Koizumi, a science and technology writer in 
Tokyo and former Knight Fellow (science journalism program) at MIT, revealed 
that before World War II the Japanese had duplicated the machine. During 
the War they promptly put it to use deriving formulas for aeronautical 
research. Having studied the history of analog computers, Koizumi was 
equally surprised to see a picture of Wilbur and his machine in a recent 
MIT history, MIT in Perspective, by F. Wyle. The Newsletter editor put 
him in contact with John Wilbur Jr. '50, who supplied more details about 
the machine but could only guess at its whereabouts. 

Recently Koizumi cabled to Wilbur Jr. from Tokyo that the Japanese copy 
of the Wilbur Machine will be display at the National Science Museum in 
Tokyo from March 6 to June 3. "They will have a special exhibit on 'The 
Dawn of the Information Age,' and your father's machine will be introduced 
as one of the important machines that shaped the information world." If 
any readers happen to see this exhibit in Tokyo, please take a picture 
of the machine and send back a report to the Newsletter! 
      
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http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200213/000020021302A0325305.php
Science Links, Japan

Short History and Calculation of the Wilbur Machine.Accession number;02A0325305 
Title: Short History and Calculation of the Wilbur Machine. 
Author: MAEJIMA MASAHIRO(National Science Museum)    
Journal Title: Bull Natl Sci Mus Ser E
 
Journal Code:Y0995A
 
ISSN:0387-8511
 
VOL.24;NO.;PAGE.25-29(2001)  
Figure&Table&Reference;FIG.5, TBL.1, REF.3 
Pub. Country;Japan 
Language;Japanese 

Abstract;This item is a calculator made by Dr. Tathujiro Sasaki, Mr. Ryo Shiga 
and others for working out nine simultaneous linear algebraic equations. The 
original machine was designed and made by Dr. John B. Wilbur in 1936. Some 
machines of this type were made in the world. However all of them seemed to 
disappear except this Japanese one. This report shows some details of this 
machine, which was researched for an exhibition "The Heroes of Information Age" 
at the National Science Museum in between March 6 and June 5, 2001. (author abst.) 
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