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Bell Laboratories scientist George Stibitz uses

relays for a demonstration adder
“Model K” Adder

Called the “Model K” Adder because he built it on his “Kitchen”

table, this simple demonstration circuit provides proof of concept
for applying Boolean logic to the design of computers, resulting in
construction of the relay-based Model I Complex Calculator in
1939. That same year in Germany, engineer Konrad Zuse built
his Z2 computer, also using telephone company relays.
Hewlett-Packard is founded

Hewlett and Packard in their garage workshop

David Packard and Bill Hewlett found their company in a Palo

Alto, California garage. Their first product, the HP 200A Audio
Oscillator, rapidly became a popular piece of test equipment for
engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model
to test recording equipment and speaker systems for the 12
specially equipped theatres that showed the movie “Fantasia” in
1940.

The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is

completed
Operator at Complex Number Calculator (CNC)

In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completes this calculator,

designed by scientist George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz
demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society
conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group
by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New
York City) using a Teletype terminal connected via to New York
over special telephone lines. This is likely the first example of
remote access computing.

Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 Computer

The Zuse Z3 Computer

The Z3, an early computer built by German engineer Konrad Zuse

working in complete isolation from developments elsewhere, uses
2,300 relays, performs floating point binary arithmetic, and has a
22-bit word length. The Z3 was used for aerodynamic calculations
but was destroyed in a bombing raid on Berlin in late 1943. Zuse
later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s, which is
currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
The first Bombe is completed

Bombe replica, Bletchley Park, UK

Built as an electro-mechanical means of decrypting Nazi

ENIGMA-based military communications during World War II, the
British Bombe is conceived of by computer pioneer Alan Turing
and Harold Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company.
Hundreds of allied bombes were built in order to determine the
daily rotor start positions of Enigma cipher machines, which in
turn allowed the Allies to decrypt German messages. The basic
idea for bombes came from Polish code-breaker Marian
Rejewski's 1938 "Bomba."

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is

completed
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer

After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in

1939, Professor John Vincent Atanasoff receives funds to build a
full-scale machine at Iowa State College (now University). The
machine was designed and built by Atanasoff and graduate
student Clifford Berry between 1939 and 1942. The ABC was at
the center of a patent dispute related to the invention of the
computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that
ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had seen the ABC shortly after
it became functional.

The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the

originator of several basic computer ideas, but the computer as a
concept was declared un-patentable and thus freely open to all. A
full-scale working replica of the ABC was completed in 1997,
proving that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasoff had
claimed. The replica is currently on display at the Computer
History Museum.

Bell Labs Relay Interpolator is completed

George Stibitz circa 1940

The US Army asked Bell Laboratories to design a machine to

assist in testing its M-9 gun director, a type of analog computer
that aims large guns to their targets. Mathematician George
Stibitz recommends using a relay-based calculator for the project.
The result was the Relay Interpolator, later called the Bell Labs
Model II. The Relay Interpolator used 440 relays, and since it was
programmable by paper tape, was used for other applications
following the war.

Curt Herzstark designs Curta calculator

Curta Model 1 calculator

Curt Herzstark was an Austrian engineer who worked in his

family’s manufacturing business until he was arrested by the
Nazis in 1943. While imprisoned at Buchenwald concentration
camp for the rest of World War II, he refines his pre-war design of
a calculator featuring a modified version of Leibniz’s “stepped
drum” design. After the war, Herzstark’s Curta made history as
the smallest all-mechanical, four-function calculator ever built.

First Colossus operational at Bletchley Park

The Colossus at work at Bletchley Park

Designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers, the Colossus is

designed to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis
during World War II. A total of ten Colossi were delivered, each
using as many as 2,500 vacuum tubes. A series of pulleys
transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing
possible solutions to a particular code. Colossus reduced the time
to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. Most historians
believe that the use of Colossus machines significantly shortened
the war by providing evidence of enemy intentions and beliefs.
The machine’s existence was not made public until the 1970s.

Harvard Mark 1 is completed

Harvard Mark 1 is completed

Conceived by Harvard physics professor Howard Aiken, and

designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark 1 is a room-sized,
relay-based calculator. The machine had a fifty-foot long camshaft
running the length of machine that synchronized the machine’s
thousands of component parts and used 3,500 relays. The Mark 1
produced mathematical tables but was soon superseded by
electronic stored-program computers.

John von Neumann writes First Draft of a

Report on the EDVAC
John von Neumann

In a widely circulated paper, mathematician John von Neumann

outlines the architecture of a stored-program computer, including
electronic storage of programming information and data -- which
eliminates the need for more clumsy methods of programming
such as plugboards, punched cards and paper. Hungarian-born
von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in
hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics,
and the use of mechanical devices for computation. After the war,
he concentrated on the development of Princeton´s Institute for
Advanced Studies computer.

Moore School lectures take place

The Moore School Building at the University of Pennsylvania

An inspiring summer school on computing at the University of

Pennsylvania´s Moore School of Electrical Engineering stimulates
construction of stored-program computers at universities and
research institutions in the US, France, the UK, and Germany.
Among the lecturers were early computer designers like John von
Neumann, Howard Aiken, J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly,
as well as mathematicians including Derrick Lehmer, George
Stibitz, and Douglas Hartree. Students included future computing
pioneers such as Maurice Wilkes, Claude Shannon, David Rees,
and Jay Forrester. This free, public set of lectures inspired the
EDSAC, BINAC, and, later, IAS machine clones like the AVIDAC.

Project Whirlwind begins

Whirlwind installation at MIT

During World War II, the US Navy approaches the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to
train bomber crews. Under the leadership of MIT's Gordon Brown
and Jay Forrester, the team first built a small analog simulator,
but found it inaccurate and inflexible. News of the groundbreaking
electronic ENIAC computer that same year inspired the group to
change course and attempt a digital solution, whereby flight
variables could be rapidly programmed in software. Completed in
1951, Whirlwind remains one of the most important computer
projects in the history of computing. Foremost among its
developments was Forrester’s perfection of magnetic core
memory, which became the dominant form of high-speed random
access memory for computers until the mid-1970s.

Public unveiling of ENIAC

ENIAC

Started in 1943, the ENIAC computing system was built by John

Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the Moore School of Electrical
Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania. Because of its
electronic, as opposed to electromechanical, technology, it is over
1,000 times faster than any previous computer. ENIAC used
panel-to-panel wiring and switches for programming, occupied
more than 1,000 square feet, used about 18,000 vacuum tubes
and weighed 30 tons. It was believed that ENIAC had done more
calculation over the ten years it was in operation than all of
humanity had until that time.

First Computer Program to Run on a

Computer
Kilburn (left) and Williams in front of 'Baby'

University of Manchester researchers Frederic Williams, Tom

Kilburn, and Geoff Toothill develop the Small-Scale Experimental
Machine (SSEM), better known as the Manchester "Baby." The
Baby was built to test a new memory technology developed by
Williams and Kilburn -- soon known as the Williams Tube – which
was the first high-speed electronic random access memory for
computers. Their first program, consisting of seventeen
instructions and written by Kilburn, ran on June 21st, 1948. This
was the first program in history to run on a digital, electronic,
stored-program computer.

SSEC goes on display

IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC)

The Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) project, led

by IBM engineer Wallace Eckert, uses both relays and vacuum
tubes to process scientific data at the rate of 50 14 x 14 digit
multiplications per second. Before its decommissioning in 1952,
the SSEC produced the moon position tables used in early
planning of the 1969 Apollo XII moon landing. These tables were
later confirmed by using more modern computers for the actual
flights. The SSEC was one of the last of the generation of 'super
calculators' to be built using electromechanical technology.

CSIRAC runs first program

CSIRAC
While many early digital computers were based on similar
designs, such as the IAS and its copies, others are unique
designs, like the CSIRAC. Built in Sydney, Australia by the
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research for use in its Radio
physics Laboratory in Sydney, CSIRAC was designed by British-
born Trevor Pearcey, and used unusual 12-hole paper tape. It
was transferred to the Department of Physics at the University of
Melbourne in 1955 and remained in service until 1964.

EDSAC completed
EDSAC

The first practical stored-program computer to provide a regular

computing service, EDSAC is built at Cambridge University using
vacuum tubes and mercury delay lines for memory. The EDSAC
project was led by Cambridge professor and director of the
Cambridge Computation Laboratory, Maurice Wilkes. Wilkes'
ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended
three years earlier. One major advance in programming was
Wilkes' use of a library of short programs, called “subroutines,”
stored on punched paper tapes and used for performing common
repetitive calculations within a lager program.

MADDIDA developed
MADDIDA (Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyzer) prototype

MADDIDA is a digital drum-based differential analyzer. This type

of computer is useful in performing many of the mathematical
equations scientists and engineers encounter in their work. It was
originally created for a nuclear missile design project in 1949 by a
team led by Fred Steele. It used 53 vacuum tubes and hundreds
of germanium diodes, with a magnetic drum for memory. Tracks
on the drum did the mathematical integration. MADDIDA was
flown across the country for a demonstration to John von
Neumann, who was impressed. Northrop was initially reluctant to
make MADDIDA a commercial product, but by the end of 1952,
six had sold.

Manchester Mark I completed

Manchester Mark I
Built by a team led by engineers Frederick Williams and Tom
Kilburn, the Mark I serves as the prototype for Ferranti’s first
computer – the Ferranti Mark 1. The Manchester Mark I used
more than 1,300 vacuum tubes and occupied an area the size of
a medium room. Its “Williams-Kilburn tube” memory system was
later adopted by several other early computer systems around the
world.

ERA 1101 introduced

ERA 1101

One of the first commercially produced computers, the company´s

first customer was the US Navy. The 1101, designed by ERA but
built by Remington-Rand, was intended for high-speed computing
and stored 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, one of the earliest
magnetic storage devices and a technology which ERA had done
much to perfect in its own laboratories. Many of the 1101’s basic
architectural details were used again in later Remington-Rand
computers until the 1960s.

NPL Pilot ACE completed

Pilot ACE

Based on ideas from Alan Turing, Britain´s Pilot ACE computer is

constructed at the National Physical Laboratory. "We are trying to
build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by
programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus,"
Turing said at a symposium on large-scale digital calculating
machinery in 1947 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The design
packed 800 vacuum tubes into a relatively compact 12 square
feet.

Plans to build the Simon 1 relay logic machine

are published
Simon featured on the November 1950 Scientific American cover

The hobbyist magazine Radio Electronics publishes Edmund

Berkeley's design for the Simon 1 relay computer from 1950 to
1951. The Simon 1 used relay logic and cost about $600 to build.
In his book Giant Brains, Berkeley noted - “We shall now consider
how we can design a very simple machine that will think. Let us
call it Simon, because of its predecessor, Simple Simon... Simon
is so simple and so small in fact that it could be built to fill up less
space than a grocery-store box; about four cubic feet.”

SEAC and SWAC completed

The Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) is among
the first stored program computers completed in the United
States. It was built in Washington DC as a test-bed for evaluating
components and systems as well as for setting computer
standards. It was also one of the first computers to use all-diode
logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes. The world's
first scanned image was made on SEAC by engineer Russell
Kirsch in 1957.
The NBS also built the Standards Western Automatic Computer
(SWAC) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis on the UCLA
campus. Rather than testing components like the SEAC, the
SWAC was built using already-developed technology. SWAC was
used to solve problems in numerical analysis, including
developing climate models and discovering five previously
unknown Mersenne prime numbers.

Ferranti Mark I sold

Ferranti Mark 1

The title of “first commercially available general-purpose

computer” probably goes to Britain’s Ferranti Mark I for its sale of
its first Mark I computer to Manchester University. The Mark 1
was a refinement of the experimental Manchester “Baby” and
Manchester Mark 1 computers, also at Manchester University. A
British government contract spurred its initial development but a
change in government led to loss of funding and the second and
only other Mark I was sold at a major loss to the University of
Toronto, where it was re-christened FERUT.

First Univac 1 delivered to US Census Bureau

Univac 1 installation

The Univac 1 is the first commercial computer to attract

widespread public attention. Although manufactured by
Remington Rand, the machine was often mistakenly referred to
as “the IBM Univac." Univac computers were used in many
different applications but utilities, insurance companies and the
US military were major customers. One biblical scholar even used
a Univac 1 to compile a concordance to the King James version
of the Bible. Created by Presper Eckert and John Mauchly --
designers of the earlier ENIAC computer -- the Univac 1 used
5,200 vacuum tubes and weighed 29,000 pounds. Remington
Rand eventually sold 46 Univac 1s at more than $1 million each.

J. Lyons & Company introduce LEO-1

The LEO

Modeled after the Cambridge University EDSAC computer, the

president of Lyons Tea Co. has the LEO built to solve the problem
of production scheduling and delivery of cakes to the hundreds of
Lyons tea shops around England. After the success of the first
LEO, Lyons went into business manufacturing computers to meet
the growing need for data processing systems in business. The
LEO was England’s first commercial computer and was
performing useful work before any other commercial computer
system in the world.
IAS computer operational

MANIAC at Los Alamos

The Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) computer is a multi-year

research project conducted under the overall supervision of world-
famous mathematician John von Neumann. The notion of storing
both data and instructions in memory became known as the
‘stored program concept’ to distinguish it from earlier methods of
instructing a computer. The IAS computer was designed for
scientific calculations and it performed essential work for the US
atomic weapons program. Over the next few years, the basic
design of the IAS machine was copied in at least 17 places and
given similar-sounding names, for example, the MANIAC at Los
Alamos Scientific Laboratory; the ILLIAC at the University of
Illinois; the Johnniac at The Rand Corporation; and the SILLIAC in
Australia.

Grimsdale and Webb build early transistorized

computer
Manchester transistorized computer

Working under Tom Kilburn at England’s Manchester University,

Richard Grimsdale and Douglas Webb demonstrate a prototype
transistorized computer, the "Manchester TC", on November 16,
1953. The 48-bit machine used 92 point-contact transistors and
550 diodes.
IBM ships its Model 701 Electronic Data
Processing Machine

Cuthbert Hurd (standing) and Thomas Watson, Sr. at IBM 701 console

During three years of production, IBM sells 19 701s to research

laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government. Also
known inside IBM as the “Defense Calculator," the 701 rented for
$15,000 a month. Programmer Arthur Samuels used the 701 to
write the first computer program designed to play checkers. The
701 introduction also marked the beginning of IBM’s entry into the
large-scale computer market, a market it came to dominate in
later decades.

RAND Corporation completes Johnniac

computer
RAND Corporation’s Johnniac

The Johnniac computer is one of 17 computers that followed the

basic design of Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study (IAS)
computer. It was named after John von Neumann, a world famous
mathematician and computer pioneer of the day. Johnniac was
used for scientific and engineering calculations. It was also
repeatedly expanded and improved throughout its 13-year
lifespan. Many innovative programs were created for Johnniac,
including the time-sharing system JOSS that allowed many users
to simultaneously access the machine.

IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator introduced

IBM 650
IBM establishes the 650 as its first mass-produced computer, with
the company selling 450 in just one year. Spinning at 12,500 rpm,
the 650´s magnetic data-storage drum allowed much faster
access to stored information than other drum-based machines.
The Model 650 was also highly popular in universities, where a
generation of students first learned programming.

English Electric DEUCE introduced

English Electric DEUCE

A commercial version of Alan Turing's Pilot ACE, called

DEUCE—the Digital Electronic Universal Computing Engine -- is
used mostly for science and engineering problems and a few
commercial applications. Over 30 were completed, including one
delivered to Australia.
Direct keyboard input to computers

Joe Thompson at Whirlwind console, ca. 1951

At MIT, researchers begin experimenting with direct keyboard
input to computers, a precursor to today´s normal mode of
operation. Typically, computer users of the time fed their
programs into a computer using punched cards or paper tape.
Doug Ross wrote a memo advocating direct access in February.
Ross contended that a Flexowriter -- an electrically-controlled
typewriter -- connected to an MIT computer could function as a
keyboard input device due to its low cost and flexibility. An
experiment conducted five months later on the MIT Whirlwind
computer confirmed how useful and convenient a keyboard input
device could be.

Librascope LGP-30 introduced

LGP-30

Physicist Stan Frankel, intrigued by small, general-purpose

computers, developed the MINAC at Caltech. The Librascope
division of defense contractor General Precision buys Frankel’s
design, renaming it the LGP-30 in 1956. Used for science and
engineering as well as simple data processing, the LGP-30 was a
“bargain” at less than $50,000 and an early example of a
‘personal computer,’ that is, a computer made for a single user.

MIT researchers build the TX-0

TX-0 at MIT

The TX-0 (“Transistor eXperimental - 0”) is the first general-

purpose programmable computer built with transistors. For easy
replacement, designers placed each transistor circuit inside a
"bottle," similar to a vacuum tube. Constructed at MIT´s Lincoln
Laboratory, the TX-0 moved to the MIT Research Laboratory of
Electronics, where it hosted some early imaginative tests of
programming, including writing a Western movie shown on
television, 3-D tic-tac-toe, and a maze in which a mouse found
martinis and became increasingly inebriated.

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) founded

The Maynard mill
DEC is founded initially to make electronic modules for test,
measurement, prototyping and control markets. Its founders were
Ken and Stan Olsen, and Harlan Anderson. Headquartered in
Maynard, Massachusetts, Digital Equipment Corporation, took
over 8,680 square foot leased space in a nineteenth century mill
that once produced blankets and uniforms for soldiers who fought
in the Civil War. General Georges Doriot and his pioneering
venture capital firm, American Research and Development,
invested $70,000 for 70% of DEC’s stock to launch the company
in 1957. The mill is still in use today as an office park (Clock
Tower Place) today.

RCA introduces its Model 501 transistorized

computer
RCA 501 brochure cover

The 501 is built on a 'building block' concept which allows it to be

highly flexible for many different uses and could simultaneously
control up to 63 tape drives—very useful for large databases of
information. For many business users, quick access to this huge
storage capability outweighed its relatively slow processing
speed. Customers included US military as well as industry.
SAGE system goes online

SAGE Operator Station

The first large-scale computer communications network, SAGE
connects 23 hardened computer sites in the US and Canada. Its
task was to detect incoming Soviet bombers and direct interceptor
aircraft to destroy them. Operators directed actions by touching a
light gun to the SAGE airspace display. The air defense system
used two AN/FSQ-7 computers, each of which used a full
megawatt of power to drive its 55,000 vacuum tubes, 175,000
diodes and 13,000 transistors.

DEC PDP-1 introduced

Ed Fredkin at DEC PDP-1

The typical PDP-1 computer system, which sells for about

$120,000, includes a cathode ray tube graphic display, paper tape
input/output, needs no air conditioning and requires only one
operator; all of which become standards for minicomputers. Its
large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first
computerized video game, SpaceWar!, as well as programs to play
music. More than 50 PDP-1s were sold.

NEAC 2203 goes online

NEAC 2203 transistorized computer

An early transistorized computer, the NEAC (Nippon Electric

Automatic Computer) includes a CPU, console, paper tape reader
and punch, printer and magnetic tape units. It was sold
exclusively in Japan, but could process alphabetic and Japanese
kana characters. Only about thirty NEACs were sold. It managed
Japan's first on-line, real-time reservation system for Kinki Nippon
Railways in 1960. The last one was decommissioned in 1979.

IBM 7030 (“Stretch”) completed

IBM Stretch
IBM´s 7000 series of mainframe computers are the company´s
first to use transistors. At the top of the line was the Model 7030,
also known as "Stretch." Nine of the computers, which featured
dozens of advanced design innovations, were sold, mainly to
national laboratories and major scientific users. A special version,
known as HARVEST, was developed for the US National Security
Agency (NSA). The knowledge and technologies developed for
the Stretch project played a major role in the design,
management, and manufacture of the later IBM System/360--the
most successful computer family in IBM history.

IBM Introduces 1400 series

IBM 1401

The 1401 mainframe, the first in the series, replaces earlier

vacuum tube technology with smaller, more reliable transistors.
Demand called for more than 12,000 of the 1401 computers, and
the machine´s success made a strong case for using general-
purpose computers rather than specialized systems. By the mid-
1960s, nearly half of all computers in the world were IBM 1401s.
Minuteman I missile guidance computer
developed
Minuteman Guidance computer
Minuteman missiles use transistorized computers to continuously
calculate their position in flight. The computer had to be rugged
and fast, with advanced circuit design and reliable packaging able
to withstand the forces of a missile launch. The military’s high
standards for its transistors pushed manufacturers to improve
quality control. When the Minuteman I was decommissioned,
some universities received these computers for use by students.

Naval Tactical Data System introduced

Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS)

The US Navy Tactical Data System uses computers to integrate

and display shipboard radar, sonar and communications data.
This real-time information system began operating in the early
1960s. In October 1961, the Navy tested the NTDS on the
USS Oriskany carrier and the USS King and USS Mahan frigates.
After being successfully used for decades, NTDS was phased out
in favor of the newer AEGIS system in the 1980s.

MIT LINC introduced

Wesley Clark with LINC

The LINC is an early and important example of a ‘personal
computer,’ that is, a computer designed for only one user. It was
designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory engineer Wesley Clark.
Under the auspices of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant,
biomedical research faculty from around the United States came
to a workshop at MIT to build their own LINCs, and then bring
them back to their home institutions where they would be used.
For research, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) supplied the
components, and 50 original LINCs were made. The LINC was
later commercialized by DEC and sold as the LINC-8.

The Atlas Computer debuts

Chilton Atlas installation

A joint project of England’s Manchester University, Ferranti

Computers, and Plessey, Atlas comes online nine years after
Manchester’s computer lab begins exploring transistor
technology. Atlas was the fastest computer in the world at the
time and introduced the concept of “virtual memory,” that is, using
a disk or drum as an extension of main memory. System control
was provided through the Atlas Supervisor, which some consider
to be the first true operating system.
CDC 6600 supercomputer introduced

CDC 6600
The Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6600 performs up to 3
million instructions per second —three times faster than that of its
closest competitor, the IBM 7030 supercomputer. The 6600
retained the distinction of being the fastest computer in the world
until surpassed by its successor, the CDC 7600, in 1968. Part of
the speed came from the computer´s design, which used 10 small
computers, known as peripheral processing units, to offload the
workload from the central processor.

Digital Equipment Corporation introduces the

PDP-8
PDP-8 advertisement

The Canadian Chalk River Nuclear Lab needed a special device

to monitor a reactor. Instead of designing a custom controller, two
young engineers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) --
Gordon Bell and Edson de Castro -- do something unusual: they
develop a small, general purpose computer and program it to do
the job. A later version of that machine became the PDP-8, the
first commercially successful minicomputer. The PDP-8 sold for
$18,000, one-fifth the price of a small IBM System/360
mainframe. Because of its speed, small size, and reasonable
cost, the PDP-8 was sold by the thousands to manufacturing
plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories around the
world.

IBM announces System/360

IBM 360 Model 40

System/360 is a major event in the history of computing. On April

7, IBM announced five models of System/360, spanning a 50-to-1
performance range. At the same press conference, IBM also
announced 40 completely new peripherals for the new family.
System/360 was aimed at both business and scientific customers
and all models could run the same software, largely without
modification. IBM’s initial investment of $5 billion was quickly
returned as orders for the system climbed to 1,000 per month
within two years. At the time IBM released the System/360, the
company had just made the transition from discrete transistors to
integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue began to
move from punched card equipment to electronic computer
systems.

SABRE comes on-line

Airline reservation agents working with SABRE

SABRE is a joint project between American Airlines and IBM.

Operational by 1964, it was not the first computerized reservation
system, but it was well publicized and became very influential.
Running on dual IBM 7090 mainframe computer systems, SABRE
was inspired by IBM’s earlier work on the SAGE air-defense
system. Eventually, SABRE expanded, even making airline
reservations available via on-line services such as CompuServe,
Genie, and America Online.

Teletype introduced its ASR-33 Teletype

Student using ASR-33

At a cost to computer makers of roughly $700, the ASR-33

Teletype is originally designed as a low cost terminal for the
Western Union communications network. Throughout the 1960s
and ‘70s, the ASR-33 was a popular and inexpensive choice of
input and output device for minicomputers and many of the first
generation of microcomputers.
3C DDP-116 introduced

DDP-116 General Purpose Computer

Designed by engineer Gardner Hendrie for Computer Control

Corporation (CCC), the DDP-116 is announced at the 1965
Spring Joint Computer Conference. It was the world's first
commercial 16-bit minicomputer and 172 systems were sold. The
basic computer cost $28,500.

Olivetti Programma 101 is released

Olivetti Programma 101

Announced the year previously at the New York World's Fair the
Programma 101 goes on sale. This printing programmable
calculator was made from discrete transistors and an acoustic
delay-line memory. The Programma 101 could do addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as calculate
square roots. 40,000 were sold, including 10 to NASA for use on
the Apollo space project.

HP introduces the HP 2116A

HP 2116A system

The 2116A is HP’s first computer. It was developed as a versatile

instrument controller for HP's growing family of programmable
test and measurement products. It interfaced with a wide number
of standard laboratory instruments, allowing customers to
computerize their instrument systems. The 2116A also marked
HP's first use of integrated circuits in a commercial product.

ILLIAC IV project begins

ILLIAC IV

A large parallel processing computer, the ILLIAC IV does not

operate until 1972. It was eventually housed at NASA´s Ames
Research Center in Mountain View, California. The most
ambitious massively parallel computer at the time, the ILLIAC IV
was plagued with design and production problems. Once finally
completed, it achieved a computational speed of 200 million
instructions per second and 1 billion bits per second of I/O
transfer via a unique combination of its parallel architecture and
the overlapping or "pipelining" structure of its 64 processing
elements.

RCA announces its Spectra series of computers

Image from RCA Spectra-70 brochure

The first large commercial computers to use integrated circuits,

RCA highlights the IC's advantage over IBM’s custom SLT
modules. Spectra systems were marketed on the basis of their
compatibility with the IBM System/360 series of computer since it
implemented the IBM 360 instruction set and could run most IBM
software with little or no modification.

Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) makes its

debut
DSKY interface for the Apollo Guidance Computer

Designed by scientists and engineers at MIT’s Instrumentation

Laboratory, the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) is the
culmination of years of work to reduce the size of the Apollo
spacecraft computer from the size of seven refrigerators side-by-
side to a compact unit weighing only 70 lbs. and taking up a
volume of less than 1 cubic foot. The AGC’s first flight was on
Apollo 7. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface.
Astronauts communicated with the computer by punching two-
digit codes into the display and keyboard unit (DSKY). The AGC
was one of the earliest uses of integrated circuits, and used core
memory, as well as read-only magnetic rope memory. The
astronauts were responsible for entering more than 10,000
commands into the AGC for each trip between Earth and the
Moon.

Data General Corporation introduces the Nova

Minicomputer
Edson deCastro with a Data General Nova
Started by a group of engineers that left Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC), Data General designs the Nova
minicomputer. It had 32 KB of memory and sold for $8,000. Ed de
Castro, its main designer and co-founder of Data General, had
earlier led the team that created the DEC PDP-8. The Nova line of
computers continued through the 1970s, and influenced later
systems like the Xerox Alto and Apple 1.

Amdahl Corporation introduces the Amdahl

470
Gene Amdahl with 470V/6 model

Gene Amdahl, father of the IBM System/360, starts his own

company, Amdahl Corporation, to compete with IBM in mainframe
computer systems. The 470V/6 was the company’s first product
and ran the same software as IBM System/370 computers but
cost less and was smaller and faster.
First Kenbak-1 is sold