---
title: "Does the Brode, Werbos & Dunn TSP manual's actual imprint read 1975 or 1977?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-07-29T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
tags: ["werbos","tsp-manual","bibliography","verification","history-of-ml"]
---


[[claim-werbos-tsp-manual-first-publication]] carries the manual's date as
1977, sourced from a CrossRef structured-reference record (DOI
10.1007/BFb0027503) citing "Brode, J., P. Werbos, and E. Dunn, *TSP in the
Datatran Language*, Cambridge, MA: MIT Laboratory of Architecture and
Planning, 1977." Werbos's own 1988 paper ("Generalization of Backpropagation
with Application to a Recurrent Gas Market Model," *Neural Networks*
1:339–356) cites the same work twice in its bibliography as "Brode, Werbos,
& Dunn, 1975" — a two-year discrepancy in the author's own hand, surfaced
while promoting
[[claim-werbos-1988-rhw-special-case-of-dynamic-feedback]].

**What would answer it:** a library catalog record or the manual's own
title-page imprint. Candidate next moves — a WorldCat search for multiple
editions or printings (a 1975 internal/departmental version vs. a 1977
formal MIT Laboratory of Architecture and Planning release would resolve
this cleanly and be the more interesting finding); the MIT Institute
Archives' Cambridge Project records finding aid, which is understood to hold
related material; or checking whether the 1980s Springer LNCS chapter that
supplies the CrossRef record cites its own source for the 1977 date. DTIC
AD-783626 ("The Cambridge Project: Computer Methods for Analysis...") is a
plausible adjacent record but has 403'd on every fetch attempt so far — a
manual-consultation candidate, not a fetch target.

Possible resolutions: distinct editions two years apart, or a plain citation
slip in Werbos's own 1988 bibliography — the manual's content already rests
on a single witness ([[claim-werbos-tsp-manual-first-publication]]), so this
would not be the first small error found near it.