The

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and d ...

TX-2

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

was the successor to the Lincoln

TX-0 The TX-0, for ''Transistorized Experimental computer zero'', but affectionately referred to as tixo (pronounced "tix oh"), was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64 K of 18-bit words of magnetic-core memory. Const ...

and was known for its role in advancing both

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

and

human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is research in the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and computers. HCI researchers observe the ways humans interact with computers and design te ...

Wesley A. Clark Wesley Allison Clark (April 10, 1927 – February 22, 2016) was an American physicist who is credited for designing the first modern personal computer. He was also a computer designer and the main participant, along with Charles Molnar, in the ...

was the chief architect of the TX-2.

Specifications

The TX-2 was a

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

-based computer using the then-huge amount of 64 K 36-bit

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical 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 conse ...

s of

magnetic-core memory Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years between about 1955 and 1975. Such memory is often just called core memory, or, informally, core. Core memory uses toroids (rings) of a hard magnet ...

. The TX-2 became operational in 1958. Because of its powerful capabilities,

Ivan Sutherland Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subject ...

's revolutionary

Sketchpad Sketchpad (a.k.a. Robot Draftsman) is a computer program written by Ivan Sutherland in 1963 in the course of his PhD thesis, for which he received the Turing Award in 1988, and the Kyoto Prize in 2012. It pioneered human–computer interaction ...

program was developed for and ran on the TX-2. One of its key features was the ability to directly interact with the computer through a graphical display. The compiler was developed by Lawrence Roberts while he was studying at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

Relationship with DEC

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...

was a

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gov ...

of the TX-0 and TX-2 projects. The TX-2 Tape System was a block addressable 1/2" tape developed for the TX-2 by Tom Stockebrand which evolved into LINCtape and

DECtape 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, VA ...

Role in creating the Internet

Dr.

Leonard Kleinrock Leonard Kleinrock (born June 13, 1934) is an American computer scientist and a long-tenured professor at UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. In the early 1960s, Kleinrock pioneered the application of queueing theor ...

developed the mathematical theory of packet networks which he successfully simulated on the TX-2 computer at Lincoln Lab.

References

External links

TX-2 documentation at bitsavers.orgInterview with UCLA's Dr. Leonard Kleinrock
One-of-a-kind computers Transistorized computers 36-bit computers {{compu-hardware-stub