The MUSASINO-1 was one of the earliest electronic digital
computer
A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
s built in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. Construction started at the Electrical Communication Laboratories of
NTT at
Musashino, Tokyo
is a city located in the western portion of the Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 147,754 in 78,614 households, and a population density of 13,000 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Based on the 201 ...
in 1952 and was completed in July 1957. The computer was used until July 1962.
Saburo Muroga, a
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...
visiting scholar and member of the
ILLIAC I
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
team, returned to Japan and oversaw the construction of MUSASINO-1.
Using 519
vacuum tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...
s and 5,400
parametron
The parametron is a logic circuit element invented by Eiichi Goto in 1954.Information Processing Society of Japan Parametron/ref> The parametron is essentially a resonant circuit with a nonlinear reactive element which oscillates at half the dr ...
s,
the MUSASINO-1 possessed a
magnetic core memory
In computing, magnetic-core memory is a form of random-access memory. It predominated for roughly 20 years between 1955 and 1975, and is often just called core memory, or, informally, core.
Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magneti ...
, initially of 32 (later expanded to 256)
words
A word is a basic element of language that carries meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguists on its ...
. A word was composed of 40
bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as ...
s, and two instructions could be stored in a single word. Addition time was clocked at 1,350
microsecond
A microsecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one millionth (0.000001 or 10−6 or ) of a second. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when Unicode is not available.
A microsecond is to one second, ...
s, multiplication at 6,800 microseconds, and division time at 26.1
millisecond
A millisecond (from '' milli-'' and second; symbol: ms) is a unit of time in the International System of Units equal to one thousandth (0.001 or 10−3 or 1/1000) of a second or 1000 microseconds.
A millisecond is to one second, as one second i ...
s.
The MUSASINO-1's
instruction set
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, s ...
was a
superset
In mathematics, a set ''A'' is a subset of a set ''B'' if all elements of ''A'' are also elements of ''B''; ''B'' is then a superset of ''A''. It is possible for ''A'' and ''B'' to be equal; if they are unequal, then ''A'' is a proper subset ...
of the ILLIAC I's instructions, so it could generally use the latter's
software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications.
The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
. However, many of the programs for the ILLIAC used some of the unused bits in the instructions to store data, and these would be interpreted as a different instructions by the MUSASINO-1 control circuitry.
See also
*
FUJIC
*
ILLIAC I
The ILLIAC I (Illinois Automatic Computer), a pioneering computer in the ILLIAC series of computers built in 1952 by the University of Illinois, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a United States educational institution.
Compute ...
*
List of vacuum-tube computers
Vacuum-tube computers, now called first-generation computers, are programmable digital computers using vacuum-tube logic circuitry. They were preceded by systems using electromechanical relays and followed by systems built from discrete transi ...
References
*Raúl Rojas and Ulf Hashagen, ed. ''The First Computers: History and Architectures''. 2000, MIT Press, .
*''In memory of Saburo Muroga, CS @ Illinois Alumni Magazine, Summer 2011''
External links
*