SWAC (computer)
SWAC , which stands for English S tandards W estern A utomatic C omputer , was in 1950 one of the first digital computer , which at the National Bureau of Standards (NIST NBS today) in the branch office in Los Angeles , California was built and used . The developer was Harry Huskey . Similar to the SEAC , the SWAC was planned by the NBS as a transitional computer system to the not yet available successor computer RAYDAC from Raytheon and characterized by a comparatively simple and quick structure of the computer system.
SWAC was one of the tube computers , the regular commissioning took place in July 1950. At the time, SWAC was the fastest computer system in the world, until it was replaced at the top a year later by the IAS computer .
The computer was used by NBS until 1954. Due to the dissolution of the NBS department Institute for Numerical Analysis at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), SWAC was handed over to UCLA in 1954, which operated the computer with various modifications and extensions until 1967.
construction
In its original design, SWAC consisted of 2,300 electron tubes . The memory contained 256 words with a word length of 37 bits and was implemented in the form of 37 Williams tubes. Each Williams tube saved 256 bits, exactly one bit of a word. The arithmetic operations included addition, subtraction and multiplication in single and double precision, a comparison operation and commands for input and output. In the mid-1950s, the system was expanded to include a drum storage system.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b H. D. Huskey: SWAC - Standards Western Automatic Computer: the Pioneer Day session at NCC July 1978 . In: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing . tape 19 , no. 2 , ISSN 1058-6180 , p. 51 - 61 , doi : 10.1109 / 85.586073 .
- ^ NBS-INA-The Institute for Numerical Analysis - UCLA 1947-1954. Retrieved August 16, 2016 .