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BARK (Swedish: Binär Aritmetisk (Automatisk) Relä-Kalkylator, lit. 'Binary Arithmetic (Automatic) Relay Calculator') was an early electromechanical computer. BARK was built using standard telephone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine. It could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms. It had a memory with 50 registers and 100 constants. It was later expanded to double the memory. Howard Aiken stated in reference to BARK "This is the first computer I have seen outside Harvard that actually works."

History

BARK was developed by Matematikmaskinnämnden (Swedish Board for Computing Machinery) a few years before BESK. The machine was built with 8,000 standard telephone relays, 80 km of cable and with 175,000 soldering points. Programming was done by plugboard. It was completed in February 1950 at a cost of 400,000 Swedish kronor (less than $100,000), became operational on April 28, 1950, and was taken offline on September 22, 1954. The engineers on the team led by Conny Palm were Harry Freese, Gösta Neovius, Olle Karlqvist, Carl-Erik Fröberg, G. Kellberg, Björn Lind, Arne Lindberger, P. Petersson and Madeline Wallmark.

See also

• BESK - Binär Elektronisk Sekvens-Kalkylator - Sweden's second computer.
• Elsa-Karin Boestad-Nilsson, a programmer on BARK and BESK
• SMIL - SifferMaskinen I Lund (The Number Machine in Lund)
• History of computing hardware

References

1. Mathematics of Computation 1951, p. 32: "No instructions are given to the machine from tapes or similar devices; all programs are physically realized by the plugged connections."
2. Edwards, Paul N. (2010-03-12). A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming. MIT Press. p. 129. ISBN 9780262290715.
3. "12. Digital Computers in Sweden". Digital Computer Newsletter. 2 (1): 4. 1950-01-01. Archived from the original on March 11, 2021.
4. Goldstine, Herman H. (2008-09-02). The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann. Princeton University Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-1400820139.
5. Research, United States Office of Naval (1953). A survey of automatic digital computers. Office of Naval Research, Dept. of the Navy. p. 8.
6. "13. BARK Computer, Sweden". Digital Computer Newsletter. 2 (2): 4. 1950-05-01.

• "Automatic Computing Machinery: Technical Developments - The BARK, A Swedish General Purpose Relay Computer". Mathematics of Computation. 5 (33): 29–34. 1951. doi:10.1090/S0025-5718-51-99443-4. ISSN 0025-5718.

External links

• Tekn. lic. Olle Karlqvist in memoriam (in Swedish), Google translation, memorial site of one of the engineers behind BARK and BESK. On BARK page there's a technical pdf document (in English): The BARK, A Swedish General Purpose Relay Computer

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