{"podcast":{"title":"Advent of Computing","slug":"advent-of-computing-497186","podcast_index_feed_id":497186,"rss_url":"https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://adventofcomputing.com/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/4/e/2/5/4e25bc8089f88907/logo5.png","author":"Sean S Haas","episode_count":199,"summary":"Welcome to Advent of Computing, the show that talks about the shocking, intriguing, and all too often relevant history of computing. A lot of little things we take for granted today have rich stories behind their creation, in each episode we will learn how older tech has lead to our modern world.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/advent-of-computing-497186"},"episode":{"title":"Episode 181 - RAYDAC","slug":"episode-181-raydac","published_at":"2026-05-03T23:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/advent-of-computing-497186/episode-181-raydac","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/advent-of-computing-497186","url":"https://adventofcomputing.libsyn.com/episode-181-raydac","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/adventofcomputing/ep181_raydac.mp3?dest-id=1206722","summary":"In 1947 Raytheon signed a contract to make their first computer. It would be their last... at least for many many years. The fruits of this contract was RAYDAC. Early digital computers were odd, to say the least. And RAYDAC distinguishes itself. From zig-zag delay lines to hunting tapes to freon cooling, it truly is a unique machine. Selected Sources: https://ed-thelen.org/McGee_Book-4.2.2.pdf - McGee on his experience programming RAYDAC https://sci-hub.st/10.1109/JRPROC.1948.232626 - A Digital Computer for Scientific Applications https://www.jstor.org/stable/2002859 - The Logical Design of RAYDAC Like Advent of Computing? Then check out the after show! Adjunct of Computing is now LIVE: YouTube Spotify Apple Podcasts","meta_description":"In 1947 Raytheon signed a contract to make their first computer. It would be their last... at least for many many years. The fruits of this contract was R…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4338,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/advent-of-computing-497186/episodes/episode-181-raydac/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/advent-of-computing-497186/episode-181-raydac.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}