University of Utah 1 Yesterday Thoughts about guest speaker?
University of Utah 2 Memory Have it your way! -Fast and unreliable -Slow and reliable Mercury delay line Williams tube Rotating drum
University of Utah 3 Magnetic Core Memory “Core”: small ceramic rings Wired together as a grid
University of Utah 4 Magnetic Core Memory Random access Non-volatile Fast & reliable
University of Utah 5 Early Core Computers MIT Whirlwind -Flight simulator real time operation! -From analog to digital -From tubes to cores
University of Utah 6 Early Core Computers SAGE -“Semi-Automatic Ground Environment” -Sponsored by Air Force -Used to detect enemy aircraft -Based on Whirlwind
University of Utah 7 Early Core Computers SAGE -Built by IBM -first (?) “high availability” computer -Helped give IBM its dominance
University of Utah 8 Other companies Honeywell GE RCA
University of Utah 9 Honeywell Datamatic Joint venture with Raytheon (1957) -Comparable to UNIVAC and IBM computers -Obsolete at birth
University of Utah GE Much larger than IBM Senior management not interested in computers -Why?
University of Utah GE OARAC -1953, for Air Force ERMA -“Electronic Recording Machine Accounting” -1958, for Bank of America -Magnetic Ink Character Recognition
University of Utah RCA BIZMAC -Announced Commercial failure Only 1 complete BIZMAC ever installed!
University of Utah BIZMAC Designed for data processing 100s of tape drives Special hardware for search/sort -(But general-purpose hardware was cheaper!)
University of Utah UNIVAC “File” 1956 Specialized hardware for data processing -without using central processor
University of Utah What does this tell us? General purpose computers beat special- purpose machines almost every time! -Pixar -Silicon Graphics - machines -ebook readers
University of Utah Business vs Science Two product lines -Business (fixed point) UNIVAC, IBM 702, IBM 705 -Scientific (floating point) IBM 704, IBM 709
University of Utah Transistors Developed at Bell Labs (1947) -used in telephone equipment Replacement for vacuum tubes
University of Utah Second Generation Early transistor-based machines -MIT TX-0 (1956) -NCR 304 (1957) -Philco S-2000 (1958) -UNIVAC “Solid State 80” (1958)
University of Utah IBM Dominates the industry Critics complain that IBM doesn't innovate -Sound familiar?
University of Utah “Test Question” On a scrap of paper, write a question that encapsulates one of the points from today's class, and turn it in. (Put your name on it!)