Philco was one of the pioneers of transistorized computers, also known as second-generation computers. After the company developed the surface-barrier transistor, which was much faster than previous point-contact types, it was awarded contracts for military and government computers. Commercialized derivatives of some of these designs became successful business and scientific computers. The TRANSAC (Transistor Automatic Computer) Model S-1000 was released as a scientific computer. The TRANSAC S-2000 mainframe computer system was first produced in 1958, and a family of compatible machines, with increasing performance, was released over the next several years.
However, the mainframe computer market was dominated by IBM. Other companies could not deploy resources for development, customer support and marketing on the scale that IBM could afford, making competition in this segment difficult after the introduction of the IBM 360 family. Philco went bankrupt and was purchased in 1961 by Ford Motor Company, but the computer division carried on until the Philco division of Ford exited the computer business in 1963. The Ford company maintained one Philco mainframe in use until 1981.
The surface-barrier transistor
The surface-barrier transistor developed by Philco in 1953 had a much higher frequency response than the original point-contact transistors. The transistor was made of a thin crystal of germanium, which was electrolytically etched with pits on either side forming a very thin base region, on the order of 5 micrometers. Philco's process for etching was United States patent number 2,885,571. Philco surface-barrier transistors were used in TX-0, and in early models of what would become the DEC PDP product line. Although relatively fast, the small size of the devices limited their power to circuits operating at a few tens of milliwatts.
Military and government
Between 1955 and 1957, Philco built transistor computers for use in aircraft, models C-1000, C-1100, and C-1102, intended for airborne real-time applications. By 1957, the C-1102 had been used by a civilian sector customer.[1] The BASICPAC[2] AN/TYK 6V (first delivery in 1961),[3] COMPAC AN/TYK 4V (not completed),[4][5][6] and LOGICPAC[7] systems were built for the US Army as transportable computer systems for use with their Fieldata
Commercial
S-1000
The TRANSAC S-1000 was a scientific computer with a 36-bit word length and 4096 words of core memory. It was packaged in a container about the size of a large office desk, and used only 1.2 kilowatts, much less than vacuum-tube-based computers of similar capacity.[15] In a 1961 survey, about 15 S-1000 computer installations had been identified.[16]
It weighed about 1650 lb.
S-2000
The TRANSAC S-2000 was a large mainframe system intended for both business and scientific work. It had a 48-bit word length and supported calculations in fixed point, floating point and binary-coded decimal formats. The original S-2000 "TRANSAC" (Transistor Automatic Computer) released in 1958[17] was later designated Model 210; it was used internally at Philco. Similar to the
External links
References
- Historical Narrative Statement of Richard B. Mancke, Franklin M. Fisher and James W. McKie, Exhibit 14971, US vs. IBM, Part 1 July 1980^
- BASICPAC ad from 1960, from Computers and Automation, December 1960 1960s computer ads created by the real Mad Men Pingdom Royal, 30 May 2013^