The Bendix G-15 was a vacuum tube computer produced by the Bendix Corporation in 1956. It was unique for its time because of its size and pricing compared to other computers of the era. At only 5 x 3 feet and a cost of about $60,000 for a working model,…
From an IBM press release, 1956 | IBM History. The 650 RAMAC and 305 RAMAC both utilize the magnetic disk memory device announced as experimental by IBM a year ago. Both machines are the first of a planned line of equipment designed for high-volume, in-line processing of business data. Transactions…
The TX-0 (Transistorized eXperimental computer 0) was built to aid in the testing of it’s big brother, the TX-2, and many of the features used in the TX-2 were first tested on the TX-0. This was one of the reasons why the TX-0 was originally equipped with 64Kword memory (each…
The SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Enviroment) computer was one of the largest computers ever built, standing two stories tall. It required over 1 million watts of power, and held 200,000 vacuum tubes. When it became operational in 1955, it was the first digital computer used for a major military operation….
In 1954 IBM released the next evolution in their 700 series mainframes with the 704. It featured significant improvements over it’s predecessor the 701, including the use of core memory and an expanded instruction set. It wasn’t compatible with it’s older cousin, having a completely new architecture. The 704 was…
The NORC was a vacuum powered computer built by IBM for the U.S. Navy and was delivered in Decemeber, 1954. It was one of the most powerful computers of it’s day, using Williams tubes for memory and had a speed of 15,000 operations per second. It sported a total of…
TRADIC stands for Transistor Digital Computer, and as the name suggests this was the first machine to use all transistors and diodes and no vacuum tubes. It was built by Bell Labs for the U.S. Air Force, which was interested in the lightweight nature of such a computer for airborne…
Excerpt from an IBM press release, 1954 | http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/ Called the IBM Magnetic Drum Data Processing Machine, it combines one of the advanced memory devices and the stored program concept of IBM’s big “701, recently announced with new high speed reading capacity in the conventional punched card equipment to achieve…
The developers and builders of the 701 had created a computer that consisted of two tape units (each with two tape drives), a magnetic drum memory unit, a cathode-ray tube storage unit, an L-shaped arithmetic and control unit with an operator’s panel, a card reader, a printer, a card punch…
The need for a system capable of true flight simulation was one of the outcomes of World War II, and the Navy commissioned MIT to research and develop one that could help them train bomber crews. After seeing the results of the school’s study, Project Whirlwind was created with Navy…