Curious regarding Col. E.H. Harrison

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Vacek posted this 11 February 2014

I have a lot of old American Riflemam that I have been buying up as found, and as mentioned last month really enjoy any articles that were written by C.E. Harris.  In that light, Col. E.H. Harrison was also a great technical writer and I hope to one day find and purchase at a reasonable price his book Cast Bullets.  I believe that C.E. Harris was a major contributor as well to that book.

Anyway, just curious.  When did Col. Harrison retire?  Is there much biographical information regarding him?

Thanks,  Vacek

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Ed Harris posted this 11 February 2014

Col. E.H. Harrison was a graduate of West Point, Class of 1924, and had a doctorate in mechanical engineering. He retired from the NRA in the late 1970s.

It was my pleasure to work with him when I was there and he was a great mentor and friend. A true gentleman.

The NRA published a nice obit when he passed, but I do not remember the date.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Vacek posted this 11 February 2014

Ed,

Thank you for that information. His writing style was very intellectual yet understandable for the lay person. I like the way the the American Rifleman wrote back in the 60's and 70's. The writing style and level of information took it for granted that their readers were intelligent. We do not currently get that.

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Ed Harris posted this 11 February 2014

After work Bob Sears and I would occasionally visit Col. Harrison at his Arlington home near Ft. Myer. His military specialties were in technical intelligence, rocketry and artillery. After WW2 he was assigned to the Port of Bremerhaven and was involved in shipment of captured German Ordnance to the US for exploitation. In particular Anzio Annie and materials from the V2 rocket program.

He was originally from Texas and early photos of him from.the 1920s he looks like a wiry version of William Holden in the Wild Bunch. He was a fine pistol shot, even in his later years.

His son, Edwin Jr. also worked in Army Ordnance at the Harry Diamond Laboratories,near Washington, and he passed away in 2012 at age 80.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Vacek posted this 13 February 2014

If he graduated from West Point in 24 then he would have been born a little after the turn of the century; meaning he was still working (and at the top of his game) well into his 70's. 

Anyway in his research his “mechanical cards” system of data management looks very interesting.  I think one would have had to be very meticulous.  Kinda like manual key punching.  :shock:

I wonder what he would have thought of an Excel Spreadsheet.  We have all of these great tools today but I am not sure we have his discipline... at least I don't.

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Ed Harris posted this 13 February 2014

The cards were for the McBee keycard system, the patent rights later being bought by IBM and being automated, which mecame the IBM magcard system, used to program early mainframes.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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RicinYakima posted this 13 February 2014

My first computer class was on the “Cobol” IBM punch card computer that took up a whole classroom. A simple calculus formula took over 125 cards, and heaven forbid if you got one out of order. The McBee system was very logical and if you maintained good discipline, very accurate for data retrieval.

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Ed Harris posted this 13 February 2014

In my college days at VA Tech we used IBM magcards to program in FORTRAN, which at the time was preferdd for CAD/CAM applications, where as COBAL was considered more user friendly for financial applications.

About the time we got that sorted out the first Osborne potables using CPM language appeared and things rapidly went down hill from there......

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Vacek posted this 13 February 2014

Oh yeah, I remember the Osbornes. “The Portable Computer". I met a guy with one who had paid >$5000 for a 5 meg Winchester Hard Drive for his fertilizer business to do least cost formulations. His statement was, “With 5 megabytes I will never run out of memory."

I was teaching Ag Sciences at a Junior College and CPM was the language we used. Wasn't it more or less the precurser to MS-DOS?. We could open our Apple II up and put in a CPM card and rock n roll.

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TRKakaCatWhisperer posted this 13 February 2014

I still have my first CAD drawing - and all the punch cards! CPM - my first was a Kaypro - TWO 160k floppy disk drives, Z80. Where I taught we had a computer powered by a 6205 or 6705? It would do both multi-tasking and addressing - had a 10meg HDD too!  It ran a dozen or so terminals.  

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TRKakaCatWhisperer posted this 13 February 2014

Ed Harris wrote: In my college days at VA Tech we used IBM magcards to program in FORTRAN, which at the time was preferdd for CAD/CAM applications, where as COBAL was considered more user friendly for financial applications.

About the time we got that sorted out the first Osborne potables using CPM language appeared and things rapidly went down hill from there......
Yup - FORmula TRANslation and COmputer aided Business Language or close to it. Zlog produced the 8080 then the Z80 and some of them left joining/forming Intel and they took off with the 80186 80286 80386 80486 and then the Pentium. Z80's are now predominantly in PLC controllers. Wonderful to have experienced this transition - and to remember brining in hay with my step-dad behind two horses pulling the wagon.

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Duane Trusty posted this 13 February 2014

Hey

You guys take me back to the “Good Old Days” yah right.

My grandson asked me about my the first computer that I used in college, told him it was coal fired.

By the way, I never had to reboot my slide rule.

Isn't Harrison's works available on disk?

Duane

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Vacek posted this 13 February 2014

If it is available I would like to purchase it...... not the Kaypro....Harrison's work on a disc.B)

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NuJudge posted this 09 March 2014

Harry Diamond Labs . . . I got to deer hunt that land several times. Wow did they have a lot of deer there.

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Elmer posted this 18 January 2021

Howdy, Ed.

Thanks for the information on Col. Harrison. I thoroughly enjoyed his expertise and writing. Still have some old NRA books with his articles.

Btw, my uncle Stan was a Gobbler football standout in the early 1940's, I believe. After he was drafted he developed testicular cancer and died from radiation treatments at Brooke Army Medical Hospital at Ft Sam Houston, 1947. As told to me by my Father, a WW2 flyer, B-26.

Since I have you captive, would you have any "cat sneeze" loads for .22 Hornet? I've a nice little H&R Handi-Gun II, that I'd like to use as a Rook rifle.

Sincerely,

Jack M Altoona PA

JSM

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Larry Gibson posted this 18 January 2021

"Since I have you captive, would you have any "cat sneeze" loads for .22 Hornet? I've a nice little H&R Handi-Gun II, that I'd like to use as a Rook rifle."

 

Not Ed but I have a couple real good subsonic loads I use in both my 10" Contender and my 22 Hornet rifles (over the years in a Contender 21" barrel, Ruger #3, several Savage 23s and a couple others).  

Lyman 225248, GC'd, lubed with 50/50 or 2500+, sized .225 loaded over 1.8 gr Bullseye in W-W cases with WSP primers.  Runs right at 1100 fps.

Lyman 225415, GC'd, lubed with 50/50 or 2500+, sized .225 loaded over the same 1.8 gr Bullseye in W-W cases with WSP primers.  Runs right at 1050 fps.

I cast them soft with COWWs +2% tin mixed 50/50 with lead or with 20-1 alloy.  

Accuracy is excellent and the 225415 thumps ground squirrels as hard as does any 22LT HV HP.  With the suppressor they are quieter tan my pellet rifles.  

Concealment is not cover.........

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alphabrass posted this 18 January 2021

Fortran IV, CDC Cyber 170, IBM 026/029 kepunch machines, vacuum operated card reader, turnaround time for printed output - just to see the dreaded FE (fatal error) message.  HP 25 calculator, programable with 49 steps.  Fun to remember and puts today's technology in perspective.

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ALYMAN#1 posted this 18 January 2021

Like Ed I had to make a card program to do the ME experiment calculations at VT -  took quite a while to get it right and run the program for results.  Lots of fun ??  Finally got out!

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Ed Harris posted this 19 January 2021

When I was at Ruger state of the art was a 2-suiter sized IBM "luggable" used to program 8-inch Wang disks used in the Boston Digital and North American Rockwell machining centers, being replaced by Hitachi-Seiki in the late 19 80s when I left.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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Wineman posted this 19 January 2021

Everything prior to 1975 including the Saturn V and the Moon landing was handled with slide rules and three significant digits. Battleships, skyscrapers, trans ocean flights, V2 missiles, jet engines, bridges, Detroit V8's, the list goes on. Computers made the data retrieval and storage easier. The math is the same, now it is a machine that does the heavy lifting and not your brain. Games, Porn and ideas that make you want to agree with is what computers have brought to us. Don't get me wrong, I use one every day (right now) but dang I really miss writing those heart felt letters and cards and the brain needs some work to do. Hey what about the chronometer and the sextant? Just rambling.

Dave

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Bud Hyett posted this 19 January 2021

Let's not forget logarithms, the easy way to multiply big numbers by addition or divide by subtraction. One more significant figure than a slide rule if you interpolated correctly.

My college had a professor who each summer sought and received another doctorate. He wrote programs for the challenge and was a good source for physical chemistry card packs to run backing up our senior experiments. Great resource, his programs ran the first time every time.

One student miswrote a card set and shut down the core processing unit of an IBM 360 servicing five colleges in Western Illinois and Eastern Iowa. 

Farm boy from Illinois, living in the magical Pacific Northwest

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