Computer Control Company, Inc. (1953–1966), informally known as 3C, was a pioneering

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...

company known for its DDP-series (Digital Data Processor) computers, notably: *

DDP-24 The DDP-24 (1963) was a 24-bit computer designed and built by the Computer Control Company, aka 3C, located in Framingham, Massachusetts. In 1966 the company was sold to Honeywell who continued the DDP line into the 1970s. Hardware The DDP-24 wa ...

24-bit (1963) *DDP-224 24-bit (1965) *

DDP-116 The Honeywell 316 was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by Honeywell starting in 1969. It is part of the Series 16, which includes the Models 116 (1965, discrete), 316 (1969), 416 (1966), 516 (1966) and DDP-716 (1969). They were commonly used fo ...

16-bit (1965) *DDP-124 24-bit (1966) using monolithic ICs It was founded in 1953 by Dr.

Louis Fein Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis (d ...

, the physicist who had earlier designed the Raytheon

RAYDAC The RAYDAC (for Raytheon Digital Automatic Computer) was a one-of-a-kind computer built by Raytheon. It was started in 1949 and finished in 1953. It was installed at the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. The RAYDAC used 5,2 ...

computer. The company moved to Framingham, Massachusetts in 1959. Prior to the introduction of the DDP-series it developed a series of digital logical modules, initially based on vacuum tubes. In 1966 it was sold to Honeywell, Inc. As the Computer Controls division of Honeywell, it introduced further DDP-series computers, and was a $100,000,000 business until 1970 when Honeywell purchased GE's computer division and discontinued development of the DDP line. In a 1970 essay,

Murray Bookchin Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ec ...

used the DDP-124 as his example of computer progress: One of the oddest of the DDP series was the DDP 19 -- of which only 3 were built on custom order for the U.S. Weather service. Its architecture was based on a 19-bit word structure consisting of six octal bytes plus a sign bit, which in arithmetic operations could create the unusual value of "negative zero". One of these machines was donated by the government to the Milwaukee Area Technical College in 1972, which included a drum-based line printer and dual Ampex magnetic tape drives. It was used for a limited number of students as an "extra credit project device" for the next 2-3 years, after which it was (unfortunately) scrapped to make space for newer equipment. The fate of the other two units is unknown.

Notes

References

External links

Oral history interview with Louis Fein
at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Fein discusses establishing computer science as an academic discipline at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) as well as contacts with the University of California—Berkeley, the University of North Carolina, Purdue, International Federation for Information Processing and other institutions.
The 3C Legacy Project
* 1953 establishments in Massachusetts 1966 disestablishments in Massachusetts 1966 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1953 American companies disestablished in 1966 Companies based in Framingham, Massachusetts Computer companies established in 1953 Computer companies disestablished in 1966 Defunct computer companies based in Massachusetts Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Electronics companies established in 1953 Minicomputers {{compu-company-stub