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.
Only two machines were built: first one was installed at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, later NASA), the second (1947) at the US Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL).[7][8]
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]
The Model V weighed about 10 short tons (9.1 t).[9][15]
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]
[...] 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.
Model VI macro.
Model VI Wilkes.
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.
 | This computer hardware article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
