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Second Generation Computer
A transistor computer, now often called a second-generation computer, is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, were bulky and unreliable. A second-generation computer, through the late 1950s and 1960s featured circuit boards filled with individual transistors and magnetic-core memory. These machines remained the mainstream design into the late 1960s, when integrated circuits started appearing and led to the third-generation computer. History The University of Manchester's experimental Transistor Computer was first operational in November 1953 and it is widely believed to be the first transistor computer to come into operation anywhere in the world. There were two versions of the Transistor Computer, the prototype, operational in 1953, and the full-size version, commissioned in April 1955. The 1953 machine had 92 point-contact transistors and 550 di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 1620 Data Processing Machine On Display, Seattle World's Fair, 1962
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research facilities across a dozen countries; for 29 consecutive years, from 1993 to 2021, it held the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business. IBM was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems. It was renamed "International Business Machines" in 1924 and soon became the leading manufacturer of Tabulating machine, punch-card tabulating systems. During the 1960s and 1970s, the IBM mainframe, exemplified by the IBM System/360, System/360 and its successors, wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metrovick 950
The Metrovick 950 was a transistorized computer, built from 1956 onwards by British company Metropolitan-Vickers, to the extent of sixDavid P. Anderson, ''Tom Kilburn: A Pioneer of Computer Design'', IEEE Annals of the History of Computing - Volume 31, Number 2, April–June 2009, p. 84 or seven machines, which were "used commercially within the company" or "mainly for internal use". The 950 appears to have been Metrovick's first and last commercial computer offering. Transistor Computer Prototype In November 1953 Richard Grimsdale and Douglas Webb of Manchester University first demonstrated their prototype transistorized computer using 92 point-contact transistors and 550 diodes in order to test the suitability of transistors in improving the reliability of the Manchester Mark 1 computer. This machine was similar to the Mark I, except that it did not include Williams tubes and used only the magnetic drum for main memory. The machine was based on a 48-bit word, although f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
DRTE Computer
The DRTE Computer was a transistorized computer built at the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment (DRTE), part of the Canadian Defence Research Board. It was one of the earlier fully transistorized machines, running in prototype form in 1957, and fully developed form in 1960. Although the performance was quite good, equal to that of contemporary machines like the PDP-1, no commercial vendors ever took up the design, and the only potential sale to the Canadian Navy's Pacific Naval Laboratories, fell through. The machine is currently part of the Canadian national science and technology collection housed at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Transistor research In the early 1950s transistors had not yet replaced vacuum tubes in most electronics. Tubes varied widely in their actual characteristics from tube to tube even of the same model. Engineers had developed techniques to ensure that the overall circuit was not overly sensitive to these changes so they could ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TX-0
The TX-0, for ''Transistorized Experimental computer zero'', but affectionately referred to as tixo (pronounced "tix oh"), was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64Kilo-, K of 18-bit words of magnetic-core memory. Construction of the TX-0 began in 1955 and ended in 1956. It was used continually through the 1960s at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. The TX-0 incorporated around 3,600 Philco high-frequency surface-barrier transistors, the first transistor suitable for high-speed computers. The TX-0 and its direct descendant, the original PDP-1, were platforms for pioneering computer research and the development of what would later be called computer "hacker" culture. For MIT, this was the first computer to provide a system console which allowed for direct interaction, as opposed to previous computers, which required the use of punched card as a primary interface for programmers debugging their programs. Members of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln Laboratory
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as rapid system prototyping and demonstration. Its core competencies are in sensors, integrated sensing, signal processing for information extraction, decision-making support, and communications. These efforts are aligned within ten mission areas. The laboratory also maintains several field sites around the world. The laboratory transfers much of its advanced technology to government agencies, industry, and academia, and has launched more than 100 start-ups. History Origins At the urging of the United States Air Force, the Lincoln Laboratory was created in 1951 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as part of an effort to improve the U.S. air defense syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and science. In response to the increasing Technological and industrial history of the United States, industrialization of the United States, William Barton Rogers organized a school in Boston to create "useful knowledge." Initially funded by a land-grant universities, federal land grant, the institute adopted a Polytechnic, polytechnic model that stressed laboratory instruction in applied science and engineering. MIT moved from Boston to Cambridge in 1916 and grew rapidly through collaboration with private industry, military branches, and new federal basic research agencies, the formation of which was influenced by MIT faculty like Vannevar Bush. In the late twentieth century, MIT became a leading center for research in compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Canaveral
Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River. It is part of a region known as the Space Coast, and is the site of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Since many U.S. spacecraft have been launched from both the station and the Kennedy Space Center on adjacent Merritt Island, the two are sometimes conflation, conflated with each other. Other features of the cape include Port Canaveral, one of the busiest Maritime passenger terminal, cruise ports in the world, and the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse. The city of Cape Canaveral, Florida, Cape Canaveral lies just south of the Port Canaveral District. Mosquito Lagoon, the Indian River (Florida), Indian River, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore are also features of this area. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ICBM
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conventional weapon, Conventional, Chemical weapon, chemical, and Biological agent, biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRVs), allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. The Nuclear weapons of the United States, United States, Russia and weapons of mass destruction, Russia, China and weapons of mass destruction, China, France and weapons of mass destruction, France, India and weapons of mass destruction, India, the United Kingdom and weapons of mass destruction, United Kingdom, Nuclear weapons and Israel, Israel, and North Korea and weapons of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SM-65 Atlas
The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at an assembly plant located in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Development dates to 1946, but over the next few years the project underwent several cancellations and re-starts. The deepening of the Cold War and intelligence showing the Soviet Union was working on an ICBM design led to it becoming a crash project in late 1952, along with the creation of several other missile projects to ensure one would enter service as soon as possible. The first test launch was carried out in June 1957, which failed. The first success of the Soviet R-7 Semyorka in August gave the program new urgency, leading to the first successful Atlas A launch in December. Of the eight flights of the A model, only three were successful, but the later models demonstr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burroughs Corporation
The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company by William Seward Burroughs I, William Seward Burroughs. The company's history paralleled many of the major developments in history of computing, computing. At its start, it produced mechanical adding machines, and later moved into programmable ledgers and then computers. It was one of the largest producers of mainframe computers in the world, also producing related equipment including typewriters and Printer (computing), printers. In the 1960s, the company introduced a range of mainframe computers that were well regarded for their performance running high level languages. These formed the core of the company's business into the 1970s. At that time the emergence of superminicomputers and the dominance of the IBM System/360 and 370 at the high end led to shrinking markets, and in 1986 the company purchased former competitor Sperry C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM 604
The IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch was the world's first mass-produced electronic calculator along with its predecessor the IBM 603.IBM 603 The First Commercial Electronic Calculator IBM History, accessed September 21, 2020 It was an electronic unit record equipment, unit record machine that could perform multiple calculations, including division. It was invented and developed by Ralph Palmer, Jerrier A. Haddad, Jerrier Haddad and Byron Phelps. It was introduced by IBM in 1948. It could read a punched card from a deck, do some calculations based on the wiring of its plugboard, and punch results onto the same card. A separate IBM 521 Card Read/Punch processed the cards and had its own plugboard which selected the columns to be read and those to be punched. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harwell CADET
The Harwell CADET was the first fully transistorised computer in Europe, and may have been the first fully transistorised computer in the world. The electronics division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, UK built the Harwell Dekatron Computer in 1951, which was an automatic calculator where the decimal arithmetic and memory were electronic, although other functions were performed by relays. By 1953, it was evident that this did not meet AERE's computing needs, and AERE director Sir John Cockcroft encouraged them to design and build a computer using transistors throughout. E. H. Cooke-Yarborough based the design around a 64-kilobyte (65,536 bytes) magnetic drum memory store with multiple moving heads that had been designed at the National Physical Laboratory, UK. By 1953 his team had transistor circuits operating to read and write on a smaller magnetic drum from the Royal Radar Establishment. The machine used a low clock speed of only 58 kHz to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
