Z4 (computer) - 1944
The Z4 computer was the world's second commercial digital computer, designed by German engineer Konrad Zuse and built by his company Zuse Apparatebau in 1944.
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Colossus Mark 1 - 1944
The Colossus machines were electronic computing devices used by British codebreakers to read encrypted German messages during World War II. These were the world's first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices. They used vacuum tubes (thermionic valves) to perform the calculations.
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ENIAC - 1946
ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, but its first use was in calculations for the hydrogen bomb.
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Whirlwind - 1951
Development of the Whirlwind computer began in 1945, and the system was first demonstrated on April 20th, 1951. This was the first digital computer capable of displaying real time text and graphics on a video terminal, which at this time was a large oscilloscope screen. The Whirlwind was also the first computer to use Core Memory for RAM, a storage method that flourished until the 1970's. Core memory permanently stores binary data on tiny donut shaped magnets strung together by a wire grid.
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UNIVAC I - 1951
The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC. Design work was begun by their company, Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and was completed after the company had been acquired by Remington Rand. (In the years before successor models of the UNIVAC I appeared, the machine was simply known as "the UNIVAC".)
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WITCH - 1951
The Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell (WITCH), originally known as The Harwell Computer[1] and later as The Harwell Dekatron Computer[2][3], was an early British relay-based computer.
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BESK - 1953
BESK (Binary Electronic Sequence Calculator) was Sweden's first electronic computer, using vacuum tubes instead of relays. It was developed by Matematikmaskinnämnden (Swedish Board for Computing Machinery) and during a short time it was the fastest computer in the world. The computer was completed in 1953 and in use until 1966. The technology behind BESK was later continued with FACIT EDB. A copy of BESK called SMIL was made for the University of Lund, and a copy of BESK made in Denmark was called DASK.
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IBM 702 - 1955
The IBM 702 (photos) was announced September 25, 1953 and withdrawn October 1, 1954, but the first production model was not installed until July 1955. The successor to the 702 in the 700/7000 series was the IBM 705.
The system used electrostatic storage, consisting of 14, 28, 42, 56, or 70 Williams tubes with a capacity of 1000 bits each for the main memory, giving a memory of 2,000 to 10,000 characters of 7 bits each (in increments of 2,000 characters), and 14 Williams tubes with a capacity of 512 bits each for the two 512 character accumulators.
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IBM NORC - 1954
The IBM Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) was a one-of-a-kind first-generation (vacuum tube) electronic computer built by IBM for the United States Navy's Bureau of Ordnance. It went into service in December 1954 and was likely the most powerful computer at the time. The NORC was the first supercomputer.Link
IBM 305 RAMAC- 1956
The IBM 305 RAMAC, publicly announced on September 13, 1956, was the first commercial computer that used a moving head hard disk drive (magnetic disk storage) for secondary storage. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control". Its design was motivated by the need for real time accounting in business.During the 1960 Olympic Winter Games in Squaw Valley (USA), IBM provided the first electronic data processing systems for the Games. The system featured an IBM RAMAC 305 computer, punch card data collection, and a central printing facility.Link
Bendix G-15 - 1956
Pegasus - 1956
AN/FSQ-7 - 1958
IBM 7090 - 1959
The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation was in November 1959. In 1960, a typical system sold for $2,900,000 or could be rented for $63,500 a month.The 7090 used a 36-bit word length, with an address-space of 32K (32,768) words. It operated with a basic memory cycle of 2.18 μs, using the IBM 7302 Core Storage core memory technology from the IBM 7030 (Stretch) project.Link
Datasaab D2 - 1960
D2 was a concept and prototype computer designed by Datasaab in Linköping, Sweden. It was built with discrete transistors and completed in 1960. Its purpose was to investigate the feasibility of building a computer for use in an aircraft to assist with navigation, ultimately leading to the design of the CK37 computer used in Saab 37 Viggen. This military side of the project was known as SANK, or Saabs Automatiska Navigations-Kalkylator (Saab's Automatic Navigational-Calculator), and D2 was the name for its civilian application.Link
BRLESC - 1962
The BRLESC I (Ballistic Research Laboratories Electronic Scientific Computer) was a first-generation electronic computer built by the United States Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory.BRLESC was designed primarily for scientific and military tasks requiring high precision and high computational speed, such as ballistics problems, army logistical problems, and weapons systems evaluations. It contained 1727 vacuum tubes and 853 transistors and had a memory of 4096 72-bit words. BRLESC employed punch cards, magnetic tape, and a magnetic drum as input-output devices, which could be operated simultaneously.Link
Honeywell 200 - 1963
UNIVAC 1108 - 1964
The UNIVAC 1108 was the second member of Sperry Rand's UNIVAC 1100 series of computers, introduced in 1964. Integrated circuits replaced the thin film memory that the UNIVAC 1107 used for register storage. Smaller and faster cores, compared to the 1107, were used for main memory.
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