Pentagon (computer)

WorldBrand briefing

AI supplement

Original synthesis to sit alongside the encyclopedia article below. Not part of Wikipedia; verify facts on Wikipedia when precision matters.

The Pentagon (computer) is a second-generation transistor-based mainframe system developed and manufactured by Danish computing institution Regnecentralen in the 1960s, and it ranks among the most powerful domestically built computing systems produced in Scandinavia during that era, deployed primarily for large-scale public sector and scientific computing workloads.

Key moments

1962Development of the custom high-capacity mainframe codenamed Pentagon formally launched by Regnecentralen, targeting local administrative and research computing demands that imported foreign systems could not efficiently meet.
1964The first fully operational Pentagon computer unit was completed and put into production use, supporting processing of Denmark's national population registration records and large civil payroll systems.
Late 1960s: The Pentagon system expanded its usage to support high-precision meteorological simulation tasks and shared research computing resources for multiple Danish public universities.
Mid-1970sThe Pentagon mainframe was formally decommissioned, phased out in favor of newer, more cost-effective third-generation mainframe and minicomputer systems from global technology vendors.

Pioneering role for regional computing self-sufficiency

The Pentagon project demonstrated that small, non-superpower European economies could design and build high-performance computing hardware tailored to their specific public service requirements, instead of fully relying on expensive, one-size-fits-all imported systems developed for the much larger US and Western European markets. It avoided the costly custom modification fees that most US-made mainframe vendors charged Nordic public agencies for adjusting their systems to handle local population registry and social welfare data processing formats.

Underrated legacy for Nordic collaborative software culture

All custom programming utilities, performance optimization libraries, and technical documentation built for the Pentagon system were released publicly to academic computing teams across the Nordic region, with no restrictive commercial licensing attached. This open access practice laid early foundational groundwork for the collaborative, non-proprietary software development norms that later became a defining feature of Scandinavian tech communities from the 1970s onward.

Overview

Pentagon

storage
aka	Пентагон
type	Home computer
release date	1989
media	tape, floppy disks, hard drives (depending on models)
os	Sinclair BASIC, TR-DOS
cpu	КР1858ВМ1/3, Т34ВМ1, Z80A, B, H @ 3.5 MHz (7 MHz turbo mode)
memory	48 to 4096KB (depending on model)

Pentagon (computer)

WorldBrand briefing

Pioneering role for regional computing self-sufficiency

Underrated legacy for Nordic collaborative software culture

Versions

Upgrades from the original ZX Spectrum

External links

References