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Happy Birthday, UNIVAC I

Posted by Hemos on from the that's-a-lot-of-candles dept.

Daniel Goldman writes "Today is the 53rd birthday of the UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I). The UNIVAC I was delivered to the Census Bureau in 1951. It weighed some 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second. It was the first American commercial computer, as well as the first computer designed for business use. The first few sales were to government agencies, the A.C. Nielsen Company, and the Prudential Insurance Company. It could retain a maximum of 1000 numbers and was able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, sort, collate and take square and cube roots. Its transfer write/read to and from magnetic tape was 10,000 characters per second."

7 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Whats new? by greechneb · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    god, it's catching, kill the grandparent poster! and the parent!

    Ok, if you're going to do it, do it right:

    Duke Nuken Forever

    it's Duke Nukem Forever

    that's slashdot, taking stupidity to a whole new level.

  2. Re:Retarded Mods by bhtooefr · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Scott Richter (776062) saying "that mod points only go to people with fairly new accounts"?

    Why's he complaining?

    BTW, I've got my 21st through 25th mod points a couple days ago, and I might use them...

  3. My hope... by Roger+Keith+Barrett · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I wish that the terrorists in the Middle East would kidnap more poor southern white trash.

    The more rednecks we remove from our country the better it is for us.

    --

    Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
  4. Re:That would make a great story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    53 is a prime number? News to me, it divides evenly by 26.5

    (53/26.5 = 2)

  5. OT: Re:Retarded Mods by I+confirm+I'm+not+a · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Off-topic, but wouldn't the time for /. to admit the metamod system doesn't work be after the moderation has been meta-modded? Or even after the post has been fully moderated? You replied after one mod. That's like getting the first person you see in the street to select the President.

    Incidentally, I've already replied to the OP with a correction - but I certainly don't think we need to start attacking all moderators because one mod failed to RTFA, and will probably get hammered come meta-mod-time.

    --
    This is where the serious fun begins.
    1. Re:OT: Re:Retarded Mods by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      Incidentally, I've already replied to the OP with a correction - but I certainly don't think we need to start attacking all moderators because one mod failed to RTFA, and will probably get hammered come meta-mod-time.

      But that's the problem - metamod doesn't just catch them, it also catches anyone who dares mod anything other than MS-bashing as insightful. As such, old accounts tend not to get mod points. So while thess guys will hopefully get metamodded into oblivion, there's a jillion more just like them.

      And not to be pedantic, but I replied after two mods, so it wasn't one lone retard.

  6. Re:Retarded Mods by Scott+Richter · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Why's he complaining?

    Like this is my only account. Sheesh.