PC12 by Artronix was a

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, ...

built with 7400-series TTL technology and ferrite core memory. Computers were manufactured at the Artronix facility in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. The instruction set architecture was adapted from the LINC, the only significant change was to expand addressable memory to 4K, which required addition of an origin register. It was an accumulator machine with 12-bit addresses to manipulate 12-bit data. Later versions included "origin registers" that were used to extend the addressability of memory. Arithmetic was one's complement. For

mass storage In computing, mass storage refers to the storage of large amounts of data in a persisting and machine-readable fashion. In general, the term is used as large in relation to contemporaneous hard disk drives, but it has been used large in relati ...

it had a

LINCtape DECtape, originally called Microtape, is a magnetic tape data storage medium used with many Digital Equipment Corporation computers, including the PDP-6, PDP-8, LINC-8, PDP-9, PDP-10, PDP-11, PDP-12, and the PDP-15. On DEC's 32-bit systems, VAX/V ...

dual unit. It also used a

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

screen with tube memory and an

ADC ADC may refer to: Science and medicine * ADC (gene), a human gene * AIDS dementia complex, neurological disorder associated with HIV and AIDS * Allyl diglycol carbonate or CR-39, a polymer * Antibody-drug conjugate, a type of anticancer treatm ...

/ DAC to capture and display images. There was an optional

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting pl ...

to draw the results. To speed up the calculations it had a separate

floating point unit Floating may refer to: * a type of dental work performed on horse teeth * use of an isolation tank * the guitar-playing technique where chords are sustained rather than scratched * ''Floating'' (play), by Hugh Hughes * Floating (psychological phe ...

that interfaced like any other

peripheral A peripheral or peripheral device is an auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer. The term ''peripheral device'' refers to all hardware components that are attached to a computer and are controlled by the ...

. It ran an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

LAP6-PC with support for

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

and Fortran programming and usually came with end user software for Radiation Treatment Planning (RTP), for use by a

radiation therapist A radiation therapist, therapeutic radiographer or radiotherapist is an allied health professional who works in the field of radiation oncology. Radiation therapists plan and administer radiation treatments to cancer patients in most Western cou ...

radiation oncologist A radiation oncologist is a specialist physician who uses ionizing radiation (such as megavoltage X-rays or radionuclides) in the treatment of cancer. Radiation oncology is one of the three primary specialties, the other two being surgical and m ...

, and Hospital Patient Records. Software for implant

dosimetry Radiation dosimetry in the fields of health physics and radiation protection is the measurement, calculation and assessment of the ionizing radiation dose absorbed by an object, usually the human body. This applies both internally, due to ingested o ...

was available for the PC12. With extended hardware it became a multiuser system running

MUMPS MUMPS ("Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System"), or M, is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated transaction processing key–value database. It was originally developed at Massachusetts Gener ...

. Latter additions included an 8"

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

and hard disk of larger capacity. The PC12 initially controlled the Artronix brain scanner (computed axial tomography), but this was for prototyping. The PC12 was also the core of an ultrasound system and a gamma camera system. The PC12 was eventually superseded by the "Modulex" system built by Artronix around the 16-bit Lockheed SUE processor, roughly around 1976. The PC12 continued in production, but was phased out over time. Sites which used the Artronix PC12 included the Lutheran Hospital Cancer Center in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline, Illinois, East M ...

, where it was used to store the medical records of patients undergoing treatment for cancer. A 1974 paper describes the use of a PC-12 as a frontend to an

IBM 360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...

mainframe in radiation therapy, in which the PC-12 acted as the user interface while the mainframe is used to perform complex calculations.

References

External links

* Minicomputers {{mini-compu-stub