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Rowayton, Connecticut: Birthplace of the World's First Business ComputerRowayton Public Library Website
''A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems'' Report No. 1115, March 1961 by Martin H. Weik
''A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems'' Report No. 1115, March 1961 by Martin H. Weik
Service and Programming documentation
at bitsavers.org {{Unisys Programmable calculators UNIVAC unit record equipment Vacuum tube computers Computer-related introductions in 1952
The Remington Rand
Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...
409, a punched card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
calculator which was programmed with a plugboard
A plugboard or control panel (the term used depends on the application area) is an array of jacks or sockets (often called hubs) into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels are sometimes used to di ...
, was designed designed in 1949. It was sold in two models: the UNIVAC 60 (1952) and the UNIVAC 120 (1953). The model number referred to the number of decimal digits it could read from each punched card.According to ''Electronic Brains: Stories from the dawn of the computer age'', by Mike Hally, 2005, , p. 69, the Univac 60 could use 60 columns of data from a punched card, whereas the Univac 120 could use 120 columns.
The machine was designed in "The Barn", at 33 Highland Ave. in Rowayton, Connecticut
Rowayton is an affluent coastal village in the city of Norwalk, Connecticut, roughly from New York City. The community is governed by the Sixth Taxing District of Norwalk and has a number of active local associations, including the Civic Assoc ...
, a building that currently houses the Rowayton Public Library and Community Center.
These machines were discontinued when the UNIVAC 1004 was introduced in 1962. About 1000 total had been produced by 1961.
Architecture
Numbers were fixed-point and of variable length (one to ten digits). Arithmetic was done in floating point, but all results were converted to fixed point when stored in memory. Digits are represented in bi-quinary coded decimal. Each digit of memory storage contained five tubes. Four of these represented the digits 1, 3, 5, and 7, while the fifth tube represented 9 if activated alone but added 1 to the value if activated together with another tube.Hardware
See also
*List of UNIVAC products
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
* History of computing hardware
*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 ...
Notes
Further reading
* ''Electronic Brains: Stories from the dawn of the computer age'', chapter 3 (pp. 53-73), Mike Hally, 2005, ISBN 978-0-309-09630-0.External links
Rowayton, Connecticut: Birthplace of the World's First Business Computer
''A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems'' Report No. 1115, March 1961 by Martin H. Weik
''A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems'' Report No. 1115, March 1961 by Martin H. Weik
Service and Programming documentation
at bitsavers.org {{Unisys Programmable calculators UNIVAC unit record equipment Vacuum tube computers Computer-related introductions in 1952