7 Dec
2007
7 Dec
'07
11:29 p.m.
For me, this is exciting because the early transistor research was (to a large extent)
encouraged and funded by the Army Signal Corps lab that is now the home of our computer
museum.
Yes, Will D., we know for FACT that it was our lab and not just the ASC in general. Will
likes to keep us on our toes. :)
Speaking of which -- sorry for the thread hijack -- at the next VCF East we will have a
special exhibit of all the computer history that happened or that was directly related to
our lab. Bush, Mauchly, Hewlett, Vollum, Shockley -- they all are part of our history
here. (Which makes it quite fun for us to roam the hallways looking for ghosts!)
-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca>
Subj: Re: TRADIC
Date: Sat Dec 8, 2007 2:04 am
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To: General at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net; "Discussion at
priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts<cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Evan wrote:
A few days ago, someone asked about TRADIC. Tonight I stumbled upon a mention of this
computer on page 204 of the book "Crystal Fire" (Michael Riordan and Lillian
Hoddeson, 1997). The authors wrote, "In January 1954 Whippany engineers built a fully
transistorized computer for the Air Force. Called TRADIC (for TRAnsistorized DIgital
Computer), it used 700 point-contact transistors and more than 10,000 germanium crystal
rectifiers in its circuits. Capable of performing a million logical operations every
second, TRADIC was the first completely solid-state computer; it approached the speed of
computers based on vacuum tubes."
By "Whippany" they meant the Whippany, N.J. location of Bell Labs.
TRADIC is a well-known machine in the history of computing.
A little googling does bring up a lot of refs.
(I think there's another experimental/proof-of-concept machine commonly
mentioned as being one of the first transistorised machines (something from
Philco perhaps?).)
Another anecdote I ran across a few years ago in the IEEE AotHoC (which I wish
had kept a ref to), was of an IBM engineer working on one of the first
transistorised designs in the mid-50s (ECL IIRC), telling the story of how he
chose 5 Volts for the logic supply.
8 Dec
8 Dec
6:19 a.m.
For me, this is exciting because the early transistor
research was (to a large extent) encouraged and funded by the Army Signal Corps lab that
is now the home of our computer museum.
Yes, Will D., we know for FACT that it was our lab and not just the ASC in general. Will
likes to keep us on our toes. :)
The problem here is that there are a lot more facts that say most
early transistor research was so the Bell System could get rid of all
those tubes in repeater service, mostly for power and space reasons.
Define "to a large extent".
The military was actually very slow at adapting to transistor solid
state - there were many, many guys in the high up positions that did
not want them. They were right - transistors were relatively
unreliable (and poor performers) compared to tubes until about 1960.
It was not until the mid-1960 until the military started to field
partial or entirely solid state units to the troops. TRADIC and a few
other solid state equipments in the 1950s were pretty much fantasyland
- from an era when just about anything could be funded by the
military. Some might call it "pork".
And once again I will point out that Camp Evans was just a small part
of the Signal Corps. It was not the center, by any means.
And do not call the Signal Corps "ASC" - almost nobody uses that.
--
Will
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