MANIAC-II, Vacuum Tube Computer, 1957

The MANIAC II (Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Computer Model II) was built by the University of California and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, completed in 1957. It used 2, 850 vacuum tubes and 1, 040 semiconductor diodes in the arithmetic unit. Overall it used 5, 190 vacuum tubes, 3, 050 semiconductor diodes, and 1, 160 transistors. It had 4, 096 words of memory in Magnetic-core memory, supplemented by 12, 288 words of memory using Williams tubes. The word size was 48 bits. Its average multiplication time was 180 microseconds and the average division time was 300 microseconds. By the time of its decommissioning, the computer was all solid-state, using a combination of RTL, DTL and TTL. It had an array multiplier, 15 index registers, 16K of 6 microsecond cycle time core memory, and 64K of 2 microsecond cycle time core memory. For I/O, it had two IBM 360 series nine-track and two seven-track 1/2 tape drives. It had an eight-bit paper-tape reader and punch, and a 500 line-per-minute printer (1500 line-per-minute using the hexadecimal character set). Storage was three IBM 7000 series 1301 disk drives, each having two modules of 21.6 million characters apiece

Picture No

12698622

Media ID

48540504

Size

3261px x 4200px (2.1MB)

Credit

LANL/Science Source/Mary Evans