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Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.

Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.
Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.
Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.
Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.
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Carl Bowin working with first sea-going computer aboard R/V Chain.
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01/01/1962
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Date is approximate.
Image Of the Day caption:
In 1961, WHOI scientist emeritus Carl Bowin was tasked with putting the first computer on a WHOI research ship. He initially rented computers because it was too expensive to buy them. "We paid monthly fees for an IBM maintenance guy to go to sea with us," he said. "It was very costly. Also the research vessel Chain did not have air conditioning at the time. We had to build a special room within the main lab which was air-conditioned for the computers. The computer room soon became a popular hangout, especially on cruises in the tropics."
Caption from Down to the Sea for science, pg. 114:
Working with his sea gravimeter aboard Chain in 1962, Carl Bowin makes the first WHOI use of a computer at sea. Bowin reported a "thrilling sense of importance" when the system's typewriter "printed the world's first values of gravity to be collected and reduced automatically at the same time as the measurements were made."
Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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