The Univac 90/60 system front panel The Univac Series 90 is an obsolete family of mainframe class computer systems from

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

first introduced in 1973. The low end family members included the 90/25, 90/30 and 90/40 that ran the OS/3 operating system. The intermediate members of the family were the 90/60 and 90/70, while the 90/80, announced in 1976, was the high end system. The 90/60 through 90/80 systems all ran the Univac’s virtual memory operating system,

VS/9 VS/9 is a computer operating system for the UNIVAC Series 90 mainframes (90/60, 90/70, and 90/80), used during the late 1960s through 1980s. The 90/60 and 90/70 were repackaged Univac 9700 computers. After the RCA acquisition by Sperry, it ...

. The Series 90 systems were the replacement for the UNIVAC 9000 series of low end, mainframe systems marketed by

Sperry Univac UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company and ...

during the 1960s. The 9000 series systems were byte-addressable machines with an instruction set that was compatible with the IBM System/360. The family included the 9200, 9300, 9400, and 9480 systems. The 9200 and 9300 ran the ''Minimum Operating system''. This system was loaded from cards, but thereafter also supported magnetic tape or

magnetic disk Magnetic storage or magnetic recording is the storage of data on a magnetized medium. Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetisation in a magnetizable material to store data and is a form of non-volatile memory. The information is ac ...

for programs and data. The 9400 and 9480 ran a real memory operating system called OS/4. As Sperry moved into the 1970s, they expanded the 9000 family with the introduction of the 9700 system in 1971. They were also developing a new real memory operating system for the 9700 called OS/7. In January 1972, Sperry officially took over the

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

customer base, offering the

Spectra 70 The RCA Spectra 70 was a line of electronic data processing (EDP) equipment manufactured by the RCA, Radio Corporation of America’s computer division beginning in April 1965. The Spectra 70 line included several CPU models, various configuratio ...

and RCA Series computers as the UNIVAC Series 70. They redesigned the 9700, adding virtual memory, and renamed the processor the 90/70. They cancelled development of OS/7 in favor of VS/9, a renamed RCA

VMOS A VMOS () transistor is a type of MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). VMOS is also used for describing the V-groove shape vertically cut into the substrate material. ''VMOS'' is an acronym for "vertical metal oxide semic ...

. A number of the RCA customers continued with Sperry, and the 90/60 and 90/70 would provide an upgrade path for the customers with 70/45, 70/46, RCA 2 and 3 systems. In 1976, Sperry added the 90/80 at the top end of the Series 90 Family, based on an RCA design, providing an upgrade path for the 70/60, 70/61, RCA 6 and 7 systems. The RCA base was very profitable for Sperry and Sperry was able to put together a string of 40 quarters of profit. Sperry also offered their own 1100 family of systems and the 1100/60 provided an entry level system for converting the Series 90 customer base. Around 1982-83, Sperry announced they would cap the Series 90 Systems and would decommit the VS/9 operating system to concentrate on the 1100 series. After this announcement, Sperry would stumble on the revenue side ending their run of profitable quarters, resulting in some downsizing. The Series 90 Systems suffered from pressure from the

IBM 4300 The IBM 4300 series are mid-range systems compatible with System/370 that were sold from 1979 through 1992. They featured modest electrical and cooling requirements, and thus did not require a data center environment. They had a disruptive effect ...

series systems that offered superior price performance and may have induced Sperry to concentrate on the 1100. In a short time

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 ...

, with their flagship

VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...

line of midrange computers would pass Sperry in terms of total revenue to become the number two U.S. computer manufacturer after IBM.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Univac 90 90 Computer-related introductions in 1973