Model V

The Model V was among the early[2] electromechanical[3] general purpose computers,[4][5][6] designed by George Stibitz and built by Bell Telephone Laboratories, operational in 1946.

Relay equipment room of the Model V Computer installed at BRL[1]

Only two machines were built: first one was installed at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, second (1947) at Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL).[7][8]

Construction

Design was started in 1944.[9] The tape-controlled (Harvard architecture)[4][10] machine had two (design allowed for a total of six) processors ("computers")[11] that could operate independently,[5][12][13] an early form of multiprocessing.[4][14]

Weighed about 10 short tons (9.1 t).[9][15]

Significance

• Inspired Richard Hamming to investigate the automatic error-correction, which led to invention of Hamming codes[16][17]
• One of the early[2] electromechanical[3] general purpose computers[4][5][6]
• First American machine[18] and first George Stibitz design[19][20] to use floating-point arithmetic[21]
• Had an early form of multiprocessing[4][14]
• Had a very primitive form of an operating system, albeit in hardware. A separate hardware control unit existed to direct the sequence of computer operations.[22]

Model VI

Built and used internally by Bell Telephone Laboratories, operational in 1949.

Simplified version of the Model V (only one processor,[23] about half the relays) but with several improvements,[5][24][25] including one of the earliest use of the microcode.[26][27][28]

Bibliography

• Research, United States Office of Naval (1953). A survey of automatic digital computers. Models V and VI. Office of Naval Research, Dept. of the Navy. pp. 9–10 (in reader: 15–16).
• "The relay computers at Bell Labs : those were the machines, part 2". Datamation. The relay computers at Bell Labs : those were the machines, parts 1 and 2 | 102724647 | Computer History Museum. part 2: pp. 47, 49. May 1967.
• Irvine, M. M. (July 2001). pdf. "Early digital computers at Bell Telephone Laboratories". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 23 (3): 25–27. doi:10.1109/85.948904. ISSN 1058-6180.
• Kaisler, Stephen H. (2016). "Chapter Three: Stibitz's Relay Computers". Birthing the Computer: From Relays to Vacuum Tubes. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 35–37. ISBN 9781443896313.
• "Г. – Bell Labs – Model V" [G. – Bell Labs – Model V]. oplib.ru (in Russian). Google translation. Retrieved 2017-10-11.CS1 maint: others (link)

Further reading

• Alt, Franz L. (1948). "A Bell Telephone Laboratories' computing machine. I". Mathematics of Computation. 3 (21): 1–13. doi:10.1090/S0025-5718-1948-0023118-1. ISSN 0025-5718.
  • Alt, Franz L. (1948). "A Bell Telephone Laboratories' computing machine. II". Mathematics of Computation. 3 (22): 69–84. doi:10.1090/S0025-5718-1948-0025271-2. ISSN 0025-5718.
  • Tomash, Erwin (2008). "The Erwin Tomash Library on the History of Computing: An Annotated and Illustrated Catalog". www.cbi.umn.edu. CBI Hosted Publications. Image: Alt.Bell labs Model V.drawing of Model V, description: A Chapter, pp. 36-37. Retrieved 2018-05-08.
• Andrews, Ernest G. (1949-09-01). "The Bell Computer, Model VI". Proceedings of a Second Symposium on Large-scale Digital Calculating Machinery: 20–31 (58–69).
• "Bell Laboratories Digital Computers". Bell Laboratories Record. www.americanradiohistory.com. XXXV (3): 81–84. Mar 1957.
• Ceruzzi, Paul E. (1983). "4. Number, Please - Computers at Bell Labs". Reckoners: The Prehistory of the Digital Computer, from Relays to the Stored Program Concept, 1935-1945. Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated. pp. 95–99. ISBN 9780313233821.
• Bullynck, Maarten (2015). "3. Bell Model V Calculator: Tapes and Controls". Programming men and machines. Changing organisation in the artillery computations at Aberdeen Proving Ground (1916-1946). pp. 9–12.

References

1. "Bell Labs Model V, circa 1947 · Gallery". gallery.lib.umn.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
2. Williams, Samuel Byron (1959). Digital Computing Systems. McGraw-Hill. p. 89.
3. Research, University of Alabama Bureau of Business (1954). Printed Series. p. 5.
4. Randell, B. (2012). The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 239, 352. ISBN 9783642961458. [...] IBM SSEC [...] was hardly a stored program computer [...] being basically a tape-controlled machine in the tradition of the Harvard Mark I or the Bell Laboratories Model V.
5. Belzer, Jack; Holzman, Albert G.; Kent, Allen (1976). Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology: Volume 3 - Ballistics Calculations to Box-Jenkins Approach to Time Series Analysis and Forecasting. CRC Press. p. 200. ISBN 9780824722531.
6. Bullynck 2015.
7. Ceruzzi 1983, p. 95.
8. Datamation 1967, p. 47.
9. Alt & 21 1948, p. 1.
10. Tomash 2008, p. 37.
11. Ceruzzi 1983, p. 96.
12. Open Library.
13. • Amdahl, Gene Myron (1951). The Logical Design of an Intermediate Speed Digital Computer (PDF). University of Wisconsin--Madison. pp. 87–88.
    • Alt & 22 1948, pp. 75–76
14. Dasgupta, Subrata (2014-01-07). It Began with Babbage: The Genesis of Computer Science. Oxford University Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780199309429.
15. Irvine 2001, p. 25.
16. Ceruzzi 1983, p. 98.
17. Thompson, Thomas M. (1983). From Error-Correcting Codes Through Sphere Packings to Simple Groups. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–17. ISBN 9780883850374.
18. Knuth, Donald E. (2014). Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2: Seminumerical Algorithms. Addison-Wesley Professional. p. 378 (electronic edition). ISBN 9780321635761.
19. Irvine 2001, pp. 25-26.
20. Datamation 1967, p. 49.
21. Alt & 21 1948, p. 3-4.
22. "Relay computers of George Stibitz". history-computer.
23. Ceruzzi 1983, p. 95-96, 99.
24. Irvine 2001, pp. 26-27.
25. Kaisler 2016, pp. 36-37.
26. Reilly, Edwin D. (2003). Milestones in Computer Science and Information Technology. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN 9781573565219. Model VI macro.
27. Ceruzzi, Paul E.; Ceruzzi, Curator of Aerospace Electronics and Computing Paul E. (2003). A History of Modern Computing. MIT Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780262532037. Model VI Wilkes.
28. Reilly, Edwin D.; Ralston, Anthony; Hemmendinger, David (2000). Encyclopedia of Computer Science. Second part of the text: search (with quotes) for "stored program electronic computers.". Nature Publishing Group. p. 136. ISBN 9781561592487. The Model VI did have an ability to execute short sequences of arithmetic with single commands punched on the tape, a concept new at the time and one rediscovered and named later as “macro" commands. It interpreted these commands through ingenious electromagnetic circuits that, in effect, “microprogrammed" the machine. It is not historically misleading to use that term, since those features were seen and noticed by Maurice Wilkes (q.v.), who later developed that concept for stored program electronic computers.

External links

• "Drawing of the Model V". Tomash Collection Images. Tomash (2008)
• "Control Panel, Bell Telephone Laboratories Model 5 Computer". National Museum of American History.