In 1948, electrical engineering professor Paul Morton ’43 began work with students and faculty on the California Digital Computer (CALDIC). The College of Engineering project was meant to support education and research at UC Berkeley with a platform for “high-speed” computing. In these early days — before transistors and chips were available — CALDIC used more than a thousand vacuum tubes and crystal diodes connected into gates and latches to operate. Its memory unit was a rotating magnetic drum.
While an innovative step in computer design, CALDIC’s true legacy is an early educational tool used by the first generation of Berkeley students who became industry leaders in this new field.
“I thought that an institution which was teaching in this area would have to have demonstration equipment even if it was not very practical,” Morton later recalled. He also developed Berkeley’s first computer courses and first computational service center with IBM punch-card machines.
While an innovative step in computer design, CALDIC’s true legacy is an early educational tool used by the first generation of Berkeley students who became industry leaders in this new field.
To this day, Berkeley’s world-class research and instructional programs enable faculty and students to remain at the forefront of electrical engineering and computer science. In 2023, expanding on the explosive growth of data and information science, the UC Regents approved the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS) as Berkeley’s first new college in more than 50 years. With its groundbreaking research and top-ranked programs in computer science, data science, and statistics, the college seeks out the diverse perspectives, experiences, and expertise needed to ensure research and applications represent the needs and interests of society.
“I’m really passionate about opening data science to everyone,” says Rebecca Gloyer ’25, who notes that computing and data skills have been historically concentrated among privileged groups with disproportionate power to control how society functions. “There’s such a difference between being the only girl in your computer science class and there being many,” she says. “I have a lot more camaraderie with fellow women in STEM. We’ve got to stick together.”
Email CDSS-giving@berkeley.edu for information on supporting CDSS faculty and students.
