Computer built using discrete transistors
A
transistor computer
, now often called a
second-generation computer
,
[1]
is a
computer
which uses discrete
transistors
instead of
vacuum tubes
. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, were bulky and unreliable. A second-generation computer, through the late 1950s and 1960s featured
circuit boards
filled with individual transistors and
magnetic-core memory
. These machines remained the mainstream design into the late 1960s, when
integrated circuits
started appearing and led to the
third-generation computer
.
History
[
edit
]
The
University of Manchester
's experimental
Transistor Computer
was first operational in November 1953 and it is widely believed to be the first transistor computer to come into operation anywhere in the world. There were two versions of the Transistor Computer, the prototype, operational in 1953, and the full-size version, commissioned in April 1955.
[2]
The 1953 machine had 92
point-contact transistors
and 550
diodes
, manufactured by
STC
. It had a
48-bit
machine word. The 1955 machine had a total of 200 point-contact transistors and 1,300 point diodes,
[3]
which resulted in a power consumption of 150 watts. There were considerable reliability problems with the early batches of transistors and the average error-free run in 1955 was only 1.5 hours. The Transistor Computer also used a small number of tubes in its clock generator, so it was not the first
fully
transistorized machine.
[4]
The design of a full-size Transistor Computer was subsequently adopted by the
Manchester
firm of
Metropolitan-Vickers
, who changed all the circuits to use more reliable
junction transistors
. The production version was known as the
Metrovick 950
and was built from 1956 to the extent of six
[3]
or seven machines, which were "used commercially within the company"
[5]
or "mainly for internal use".
[3]
Other early machines
[
edit
]
During the mid-1950s a series of similar machines appeared. These included the
Bell Laboratories
TRADIC
, completed in January 1954, which used a single high-power output vacuum-tube amplifier to supply its 1-MHz clock power.
[6]
The first fully transistorized computer was either the
Harwell CADET
, which first operated in February 1955, although the price paid for this was that it operated only at the slow speed of 58 kHz,
[
citation needed
]
or the prototype
IBM 604
transistor calculator. The
Burroughs Corporation
claimed the
SM-65 Atlas
ICBM
/ THOR ABLE guidance computer (MOD 1) that it delivered to the US Air Force at the
Cape Canaveral
missile range in June 1957 was "the world's first operational transistorized computer".
[
citation needed
]
MIT
's
Lincoln Laboratory
started developing a transistorized computer the
TX-0
in 1956.
Further transistorized computers became operational in Japan (ETL Mark III, July 1956), in Canada (
DRTE Computer
, 1957), and in Austria, (
Mailufterl
, May 1958),
[7]
these being the first transistorized computers in Asia, Canada and mainland Europe respectively.
First commercial fully transistorized calculator
[
edit
]
In April 1955,
[8]
IBM
announced the
IBM 608
transistor calculator, which was first shipped in December 1957.
[9]
IBM and several historians thus consider the IBM 608 the first all solid-state computing machine commercially marketed.
[8]
[10]
[11]
[12]
The development of the 608 was preceded by the prototyping of an experimental all-
transistor
version of the 604. This was built and demonstrated in October 1954, but was not commercialized.
[9]
[11]
[13]
Early commercial fully transistorized large-scale computers
[
edit
]
The Philco Transac models S-1000 scientific computer and S-2000 electronic data processing computer were early commercially produced large-scale all-transistor computers; they were announced in 1957 but did not ship until sometime after the fall of 1958. The Philco computer name "Transac" stands for Transistor-Automatic-Computer. Both of these
Philco computer models
used the surface-barrier transistor in their circuitry designs, the world's first high-frequency transistor suitable for high-speed computers.
[14]
[15]
[16]
The
surface-barrier transistor
was developed by Philco in 1953.
[17]
RCA shipped the
RCA 501
its first all transistor computer in 1958.
[18]
In Italy,
Olivetti
's first commercial fully transistorized computer was the
Olivetti Elea
9003, sold from 1959.
[19]
IBM, which dominated the data processing industry through most of the 20th century, introduced its first commercial transistorized computers beginning in 1958, with the
IBM 7070
, a ten-digit-word decimal machine.
[20]
It was followed in 1959 by the
IBM 7090
, a
36-bit
scientific machine, the highly popular
IBM 1401
designed to replace punched card
tabulating machines
, and the desk-sized
1620
, a variable length decimal machine. IBM's
7000
and
1400
series included many variants on these designs, with different data formats, instruction sets and even different character encodings, but all were built using the same series of electronics modules, the IBM Standard Modular System (SMS).
[21]
Developers of the TX-0 left to form the
Digital Equipment Corporation
in 1957. Transistorized from the beginning, early DEC products included the
PDP-1
,
PDP-6
,
PDP-7
and early
PDP-8s
, the last starting the
minicomputer
revolution. Later models of the PDP-8 beginning with PDP-8I
[22]
in 1968 used integrated circuits making them third generation computers
System/360 and hybrid circuits
[
edit
]
In 1964, IBM announced its
System/360
, a collection of computers covering a wide range of capabilities and prices with a unified architecture, to replace its earlier computers. Unwilling to bet the company on the immature monolithic IC technology of the early 1960s, IBM built the S/360 series using
IBM's Solid Logic Technology
(SLT) modules. SLT could package several individual transistors and individual diodes with deposited resistors and interconnections in a module one-half inch square, roughly the equivalent logic of the earlier
IBM Standard Modular System
card, but unlike monolithic IC manufacturing, the diodes and transistors in an SLT module were individually placed and connected at the end of each module's assembly.
[21]
Schools and hobbyists
[
edit
]
First generation computers were largely out of reach of schools and hobbyists who wished to build their own, largely because of the cost of the large number of vacuum tubes required (though relay-based computer projects
were
undertaken
[23]
). The fourth generation (VLSI) was also largely out of reach, too, due to most of the design work being inside the integrated circuit package (though this barrier, too, was later removed
[24]
). So, second and third generation computer design (transistors and LSI) were perhaps the best suited to being undertaken by schools and hobbyists.
[25]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Morleey, Deborah (2004).
Computers and Technology in a Changing Society
. Thomson/Course Technology. p. 6.
ISBN
9780619267674
.
- ^
The Transistor Computer
, Virtual Museum of Manchester Computing
, retrieved
2018-03-23
- ^
a
b
c
Anderson, David P. (April?June 2009).
"Biographies: Tom Kilburn: A Pioneer of Computer Design"
.
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
.
31
(2): 82?86 See p. 84.
doi
:
10.1109/MAHC.2009.32
.
Archived
from the original on 21 Feb 2024.
- ^
Cooke-Yarborough, E.H. (June 1998).
"Some early transistor applications in the UK"
.
Engineering Science & Education Journal
.
7
(3): 100?6.
doi
:
10.1049/esej:19980301
.
ISSN
0963-7346
.
- ^
"1953 ? Transistorized Computers Emerge"
.
Timeline
. Computer History Museum.
- ^
Irvine, M. M. (2007).
"Early Digital Computers at Bell Telephone Laboratories"
(PDF)
.
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
.
23
(7): 22?42.
doi
:
10.1109/85.948904
.
S2CID
14905772
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2020-01-15.
- ^
Blackman, Nelson M. (June 2007).
"The state of digital computer technology in Europe"
.
Communications of the ACM
.
4
(7). ACM: 256?265.
doi
:
10.1145/366573.366596
.
S2CID
11486858
.
- ^
a
b
"IBM 608 calculator"
.
IBM Archives ... Vintage views of IBM products
. IBM. October 2015.
- ^
a
b
Pugh, Emerson W.
(1995).
Building IBM: shaping an industry and its technology
. MIT Press. pp. 229?230.
ISBN
0-262-16147-8
.
- ^
"1955"
.
IBM Archives, Exhibits, History of IBM, 1950s
. IBM. 23 January 2003.
- ^
a
b
Pugh, Emerson W.
; Johnson, Lyle R.; Palmer, John H. (1991).
IBM's 360 and early 370 systems
. MIT Press. p. 34.
ISBN
0-262-16123-0
.
- ^
Norman, Jeremy M. (2005).
From Gutenberg to the Internet: a sourcebook on the history of information technology
. Vol. 2. Norman Publishing. p. 86.
ISBN
0-930405-87-0
.
p. ]
- ^
Boslaugh, David L. (16 April 2003).
When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the United States Navy
. Wiley. p. 156.
ISBN
0-471-47220-4
.
- ^
"_".
Digital Computer Newsletter
.
9
(2). Office of Naval Research: 7?8. April 1957.
OCLC
227552420
.
- ^
Chicago Tribune, March 23, 1958, Article: "All Transistor Computer Put on Market by Philco", page A11
- ^
Rosen, Saul
(June 1991).
PHILCO: Some Recollections of the PHILCO TRANSAC S-2000
(Computer Science Technical Reports / Purdue e-Pubs). Purdue University.
Here: page 2
- ^
"Philco Claims Its Transistor Outperforms Others Now In Use".
Wall Street Journal
. December 4, 1953. p. 4.
- ^
RCA advertisement (January 1965).
"RCA announces the world's computer series"
.
Datamation
.
11
(1): 8.
OCLC
1142395
.
- ^
Parolini, Giuditta (2008).
"Olivetti Elea 9003: Between Scientific Research and Computer Business"
.
History of Computing and Education 3 (HCE3)
. Springer. pp. 37?54.
ISBN
9780387096568
.
- ^
"Trucks, sheep and the IBM 7070"
.
IBM Archives, Exhibits, Vintage Views
. IBM. 23 January 2003.
- ^
a
b
Boyer, Chuck (April 2004).
"The 360 Revolution"
(PDF)
. IBM. p. 18
. Retrieved
27 May
2018
.
- ^
"PDP-8/I IC logic module"
.
Computer History Museum
. Retrieved
17 May
2024
.
- ^
Bolt, A.B. (2010) [1966].
We Built our own Computers
. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
978-0-521-09378-1
.
- ^
Mead, C.; Conway, L. (1980).
Introduction to VLSI Systems
. Addison-Wesley.
ISBN
0-201-04358-0
.
- ^
A.Wilkinson (1968). Computer Models, Edward Arnold, UK, SBN 7131 1515 X
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