2024-11-09

[EN] Once Upon a Time in the Golden Age


Picture via Facebook group At the Controls.

Jet propulsion engineer Emma Davis
working with MATH-MATIC by Grace Hopper
to model gas flow in a turbofan aircraft engine.

Computer:
UNIVAC II by Sperry Rand (1959);
Lockheed Aircraft Company, Marietta, Georgia 1960s.
Word size: 72 bits (twelve 6-bit characters).
Clock rate: 2.25 MHz.
Speed: 3000 operations per second.
Hardware: 5,200 vacuum tubes consuming 190 kW, 1,200 transistors, 18,000 crystal diodes.
Memory: 184,000 bits, ferrite core (tenfold improvement over the mercury delay-line tanks of the previous model).

Further reading:

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[EN] A Curio about the Digits of Pi

;;;; pi-digits.cl -*- mode: lisp; -*- ;;; Illustrate a curio about the first 40 (decimal) digits of π. ;;; Time-stamp: <2025-07-22 16:52...