WEIZAC
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Weizac ( Weiz man A utomatic C alculator ) is the name of the first computer in Israel in the world and also one of the first mainframe. It was built from 1954 to 1955 at the Weizmann Institute for Science and was based on the IAS ( Institute for Advanced Study ) architecture developed by John von Neumann . Instead of 1 kB of memory as on the IAS computer , however, it had 4 kB. At the end of 1955 he carried out his first calculations. WEIZAC was in operation until December 29, 1963 and was replaced by GOLEM .
WEIZAC was developed on a budget of $ 50,000, one-fifth of the total budget of the Weizmann Institute. The committee at the IAS that spoke out in favor of the project also included Albert Einstein and John von Neumann himself. The development of WEIZAC was headed by Gerald Estrin , Estrin's wife Thelma (an electrical engineer), Chaim L. Pekeris and Aviezri Fraenkel were involved and others (around a dozen people in total). The applied mathematician Pekeris, who initiated the initiative, was subsequently also one of the main users. The WEIZAC was also used by the Israeli military , but they only had one hour per week (later expanded to two).
The WEIZAC still exists today in the Weizmann Institute.
literature
- Gerald Estrin The WEIZAC Years (1954-1963) , IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 13, 1991, pp. 317-339
