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 9,800 vacuum tubes and 10,000 crystal diodes.It also had 8 magnetic tape units and two printers. At the presentation ceremony it calculated pi to 3089 digits in a new record time of 13 minutes. In 1955 the system was moved to the Naval Proving Ground in Virginia, where it was used until 1968.
This Day In Tech History
- 1987 - Perl is released via a newsgroup posting.
More Tech History
M.I.T introduces APT, a language used to instruct milling machine operations. Created by the Servomechanisms Laboratory, it demonstrated computer assisted manufacturing.
The first transistorized IBM computer is introduced. The 7030, aka The Stretch, sat at the top of the heap with 64-bit word.
ERMA is created. The digitized numbers on checks were created for Bank of America so that a special scanner could read numbers pre-printed in metallic ink.
The U.S. Army Signal Corps brings the MOBIDIC (MOBile Digial Computer) online for the first time. It was designed and built on contract by Sylvania.
The first fully transistorized mobile radios are introduced by Motorola.
The first office copier, the Xerox 914, arrives.