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(Originally titled “Midnight at the Millennium”)

By Philip Brown

(The Mountain Astrologer, Dec./Jan. 1998-99)

Over the past 25 years, our world has been transformed—with accelerating speed—into a digitally-connected and interdependent social and economic matrix. This change has affected everything from our jobs to our personal relationships to our homes, but it has also made us eerily dependent on digital technology in ways we are just beginning to fathom. In May, 1998, many individuals who are dependent on pagers may have been surprised to discover that a global positioning satellite called the Galaxy 4 was responsible for their messages; when that satellite inexplicably failed, pagers all over the U.S. simply stopped working. The market for cellular phones and similar electronic gizmos has exploded (Uranus in Aquarius) but the chips, codes, and gossamer webs of digital circuits—along with their “bugs”—are so well concealed by the mesmerizingly glamorous “road ahead” that all we can do is marvel at the wonderful miracle of our digital transformation (Neptune in Aquarius).

Because computers (and their smaller offspring, embedded microchips) are in some way a part of almost everything we do—driving a car, buying food, making a phone call—constructing an event chart for the birth of the modern computer can give us a great deal of insight into our world and where it is going as we rapidly approach the new millennium.

ENIAC dedication--Feb. 15, 1946, 7:00 PM, Philadelphia, PA

ENIAC: The birth of the computer

There are many computer “birth” dates to choose from, but two in particular have a great deal of current relevance. The first is the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer). The ENIAC was built at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. It was formally dedicated at a special public unveiling at 7:00 PM EST on February 15, 1946. Although word of ENIAC’s existence was leaked to the press prior to the public dedication, the dedication itself acted as a kind of birth from the engineering lab into the public consciousness. The huge machine was officially switched on and ran its first public calculations (equivalent, perhaps to a 30-ton, 30-by-50-foot baby’s first breath in the delivery room). Lights on the ENIAC dramatically blinked and flickered in true Hollywood fashion. In fact, ENIAC is significant because, of all inaugural computer events, it was the most glitzy and resonated most strongly in the public imagination. Subsequent press reports spoke glowingly of ENIAC’s awesome brain power. Not surprisingly, Neptune is very strong in the ENIAC chart. The ENIAC chart represents our idealization and glamorization of technology. ENIAC was instantly idealized in press reports as nothing less than an “all-electronic super calculator” capable of solving “super problems.”[1]

EDVAC: Memory storage

The second computer chart is for the lesser-known EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). In an academic report titled “A First Draft of a report on the EDVAC,” dated June 30, 1945, John von Neumann, who was also working at the Moore School, conceived of a technological advance on ENIAC, which was then under development. Although ENIAC was a parallel processor (i.e., it could do two or more functions simultaneously), it could store only a very small amount of data and had to be externally recalibrated every time a new calculation was done. Von Neumann’s “First Draft” contained the first computer program design using a stored program. This stored-memory concept has in turn led to the development of the modern components of digital technology: computer programming, computer languages, operating systems, and software. Indeed, von Neumann’s stored-memory concept “has characterized the mainstream of digital computer development since 1945. This concept…has made possible the computer revolution as we now know it.”[2]

John von Neumann’s “First Draft,” although not officially published, received wide distribution in the academic world, and has been characterized as “…one of the most renowned documents in the history of technology…” [3] Other engineering groups concurrently struggling to develop computers in the mid 1940s were heavily influenced by von Neumann’s report. ENIAC was a parallel processor that had no storage capacity, and EDVAC was a stored-memory computer that could not do parallel processing. Thus, the combined influences of these two computers have given us the modern stored-memory, parallel-processing computer. [4]

Uranus and computers

In the ENIAC chart, Uranus conjuncts the MC. Uranus has traditionally ruled computers. Paul Wright notes, “The return of Uranus to its discovery degree in 1947 heralded the onset of the computer age.” What could be a more appropriate placement for the widely-reported public demonstration of the first computer than Uranus on the MC? Virgo is rising in the ENIAC chart and all four angles are mutable. Chiron squares the Mars-Saturn conjunction (“voltage regulation”—the ENIAC was, after all, electronic). Zane Stein, who presciently linked Chiron to computers in his book, Essence and Application: A View from Chiron, likens Chiron to a seed that uses the “power of something extremely small to bring about changes in the world around.” [5]

1996 TL66, a mini-planet

On October 9, 1996, a mini-planet, thought to originate from the Kuiper Belt, was discovered. This new mini-planet, christened 1996 TL66 by astronomers, is the “brightest object spotted beyond Neptune since the discoveries in 1930 of Pluto and its moon, Charon, in 1978…” [6] TL66’s orbit takes it inside of Pluto and then far beyond to the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. It is the largest, brightest, and most eccentric in orbit of all the Kuiper Belt mini-planets that have been sited. TL66 is presently at or near its perihelion, which is why astronomers were able to spot it. The fact that its orbit links the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud to our solar system should be of significance to astrologers.

Secondary Progressions and Computer Trends

…Progressed planetary motions help us to gauge internal changes, which, when ready, manifest as concrete events. Progressions are an especially appropriate way for charting the progress of an internal system like the computer. In particular, progressed Mercury in both the ENIAC and EDVAC charts, especially directional and progressed sign changes, seem to correlate uncannily with major changes in technology. In August 1982, secondary progressed EDVAC Mercury was stationary retrograde in Virgo, the sign of its exaltation, and secondary progressed Mars was sextile EDVAC Pluto and the Uranus/Neptune midpoint (a sensitive trigger for technological change). That same year, Compaq Computer incorporated; Sun Microsystems was founded; Microsoft began licensing MS-DOS; and at the end of the year Time magazine named the computer its “Man of the Year.” The computer industry in 1982 was moving away from total reliance on large mainframe computers to small, desktop personal computers. The following year, Compaq Computer has the greatest first-year sales in the history of American business; ten million computers were in use in the United States; and Apple prepared to introduce the Macintosh with its famous January 1984 Super Bowl commercial (which depicted a computer being pulverized by a sledgehammer). As the secondary progressed EDVAC Mercury will be retrograde for several more years, we are continuing to witness ever smaller, more portable computers (i.e., laptops, personal digital assistants, etc.).

Secondary progressed ENIAC Mercury was also retrograde and moved back from Aries into its fall in Pisces at the end of 1990. The following year IBM reported its first revenue decline in 45 years, and many other computer companies suffered quarterly or full-year losses. In February 1998 this secondary progressed ENIAC Mercury went stationary direct just as the digital revolution moved into high gear—and Neptune entered Aquarius.

Transiting Uranus will soon be squaring the ENIAC Uranus. Neptune will conjunct the ENIAC Sun in ____. If the ENIAC chart represents the public idealization of technology, then we will certainly be witnessing some deep transformation of that in the public consciousness. The exact form this transformation will take, and how it will manifest, remain to be seen. Nevertheless, the “road ahead” promises to be a very interesting ride.

“Answers by Eny,” Newsweek, February 18, 1946, p. 75.
Anthony Ralston, Editor, Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold and Company, 1983, p. 1435.
David Ritchie, The Computer Pioneers: The Making of the Modern Computer, New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1986, p. 174.
The Manchester Mark I in England was the first stored-program computer to become operational, in 1948. However, its development was made possible because British engineers visiting the United States read von Neumann’s “First Draft” and took those ideas back to England.
Zane Stein, Essence and Application: A View from Chiron, Toledo, OH: Zane Stein Publisher, 1995, p. 85.
Discovery Channel Online, “Planetoid Found,” June 6, 1997.

Data Sources and Further Information

ENIAC Chart: I received copies of two e-mails from an archivist at the University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center in response to my phone inquiry about the exact date and time of the public dedication of ENIAC. The archivist cited several sources, including an internal memo. I used copies of the original War Department press releases with date and time (February 15, 1946, 7:00 PM ET) that are referenced as authentic times of the public dedication in an internal memo cited by the University of Pennsylvania archivist. In addition, “The ENIAC Story,” by Martin H. Weik, contains much information on the ENIAC computer in addition to giving the date it was formally dedicated (February 15, 1946). I took these extra precautions to pin down the date because there is a great deal of misinformation about the correct date. I’ve seen February 1, 14, 15, and 16 all used in various reports. I believe I have established unquestioningly that it was formally dedicated on February 15, 1946. “The ENIAC Story” was prepared with the assistance of Herman Goldstine and Paul Gillon, both of whom were instrumental in creating ENIAC.

EDVAC Chart: See John von Neumann’s First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, Contract #W-670-ORD-4926, U.S. Army Ordnance Dept. and Univ. of Penn., Moore School of Electrical Engineering, Univ. of Penn., Philadelphia, PA, June 30, 1945.

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Friday, December 21, 2012

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