UNIVAC

toc =Introduction=

The UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) was created by [|J.P. Eckert] and [|John Maulchy] as a device to be used for statistics calculations. Weighing in at over 16,000 lbs and requiring 5,000 vaccum tubes, the UNIVAC was the first stored-program computer, capable of processing up to 1,000 calculations per second.

On the eve of the 1952 U.S. Presidential election, the UNIVAC was loaned to CBS to help predict a winner. With a one-percent sample of the voting population, the UNIIVAC estimated that Dwight Eisenhower was going to be the new President. The UNIVAC's predictions proved to be true, and the first American commercial computer was born.

[|UNIVAC photograph history]

=Brief History=

Throughout the second World War, the UNIVAC system was developed mostly due to military research done at the University of Pennsylvania, and was funded with contributions from the National Bureau of Standards and Prudential Insurance. On March 31, 1951 the U.S. Census Bureau took ownership of the first UNIVAC computer, and helped swallow the final one million dollar construction cost.

After the 1952 election, during which the UNIVAC was introduced to the mass public via CBS as a voter-prediction gimmick, General Electric acquired the UNIVAC in 1954 after establishing an industrial payroll application program for its Appliance Division.

Finally, in 1956 Westinghouse Electric Company installed the UNIVAC to process payrolls and sales records. With the amount of processing needed, the UNIVAC completed roughly 90,000 calculations per month.

By 1958, a total of 46 UNIVAC computer systems had been established in places like the University of California and New York University, and all were being programmed for different uses.

The capabilities of this new technology began to rapidly affect and alter the status and positions of other then-current information 'technologies.' The idea of information and information processing began to be viewed as a commodity with this shift in perception also came a rise in the status of information in general. Today, "information" is referred to as a product or a capital. It is the main tool that generates business and keeps business markets flowing. What once was a media gimmick has evolved to become the main tool of communication in both the personal and business worlds of the 21st century.

Specs
Remington Rand, the company that funded the development of the UNIVAC, developed a system in which magnetic tape could input large amounts of data into the programmed system of the computer. This magnetic tape worked much more effectively than the 'punch card' system implemented in competiting company IBM's compuer systems. The magnetic tape system allowed the UNVIAC to:
 * have an add time of 120 microseconds
 * a multiply time of 1,800 microseconds
 * a divide time of 3,600 microseconds
 * and an output/media speed of 12,800 characters per second.

=Works Cited=

Bellis, Mary. "Inventors of the Modern Computer - The History of the UNIVAC Computer." www.about.com 

Roszak, Theodore. "The Cult of Information." __The Information Society Reader.__ Ed. Frank Webster, Raimo Blom, Erikki Karvonen, Harri Melin, Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Ensino Puoskari. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. 56-57, 60.

http://www.csif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~csclub/museum/items/univac.html