1953 March

A comment in a newly published book (George Dyson, Turing's Cathedral) caught my attention - "In March 1953 there were 53 kilobytes of high-speed random access memory on planet earth." The date made me stop because that was the month I was born. But also the fact of 53KB of RAM on earth, when today a single iPhone has 512MB of RAM, some 10,000 times more. And there are complaints that's not enough. Five of the 53 kilobytes were in the first all electronic digital computer as we understand the term today - MANIAC (Mathematical and Numerical Integrator and Computer) at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

And what may the MANIAC mathematicians and engineers have been reading?

Harlequin 218 - March 1953

Harlequin 218 back

Harlequin 220 - March 1953

Harlequin 220 back

Harlequin 221- March 1953

Harlequin 221 back

expo67 Part I

Inspired by a recent post on The Dusty Bookcase I found the expo67 Album Souvenir Book - a book of photographs of models of buildings meant to last but six months, all in glorious mid 60s colour printing. Needs to be shared - here are the first eight pages.

Canada and Harlequin Part II

In an earlier post I discussed a Harlequin edition of an American book with a Canadian currency connection on the cover. Here's another example. Weep Not Fair Lady was first published under the title If You Have Tears by New York's Mystery House in 1947. 

In this California bank vault we see stacks of Canadian currency - the face of the 1937 two dollar and the back of the 1937 one dollar. Our not-too-bright secretive friend is going to be surprised when he tries to spend it.

Harlequin 49

Harlequin 49 - May 1950

Harlequin 49 back