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- Schematic for the Computer System X-66744, Bell Telephone Laboratories
Schematic for the Computer System X-66744, Bell Telephone Laboratories
Object Details
- Description
- The computing collection contains several schematics of the computer system X-66744, created by Samuel B. Williams and George Stibitz at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City. Williams and Stibitz designed a series of six electromechanical relay computers between 1939 and 1949. The X-66744 was fifth in the series of computers, later called Models I through VI, which were deployed in defense efforts, including executing calculations for antiaircraft guns at federal agencies and military research hubs. This computer was one of two duplicate Model V versions created between 1946 and 1947. The Model V computers were sophisticated digital calculating machines that employed about 9,000 telephone relays for switching elements and paper tape for programming. They could perform multiple calculations using floating point numbers and contained a system for self-checking errors. The Model V represented the limits of what was possible with electromechanical relay technology for the time. Even though relays would fail intermittently, the self-checking system and ability to automatically switch to other calculations afforded the machine its reliable reputation and impressive track record for continuous around-the-clock operation.
- In 1946, the x-66744 was delivered to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in Langley Field, Virginia. Then, in 1958 it was given to Texas Technical College, although according to a 1963 article in The Bell System Technical Journal, the machine suffered extensive damage in that shipment and its parts were salvaged for the other Model V computer that was in operation at Fort Bliss, Texas and later New Mexico State University at Las Cruces before portions of it were acquired by NMAH. The article erroneously mentions that the latter computer was transferred to the University of Arizona rather than New Mexico State University. See the Model V (or Model 5) Control Panel in the NMAH collection (1987.0821.01).
- References:
- Andrews, E.G. “Telephone Switching and the Early Bell Laboratories Computers.” The Bell System
- Technical Journal 42:2 March 1963): 341 – 353.
- Ceruzzi, Paul. Reckoners: The Prehistory of the Digital Computer from Relays to the Stored Program
- Concept, 1935-1945 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1983).
- Kidwell, Peggy and Paul Ceruzzi. Landmarks in Digital Computing (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
- Institution Press, 1994).
- Millman, Sidney, Ed. A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Communications Sciences
- 1925-1980 (AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1984).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Gift of New Mexico State University
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- 1952-09-12
- ID Number
- 1983.3018.32
- nonaccession number
- 1983.3018
- catalog number
- 1983.3018.32
- maker
- Bell Telephone Laboratories
- Object Name
- blueprint
- Physical Description
- paper (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall (folded): 9 1/4 in x 13 3/4 in x 0 in; 23.495 cm x 34.925 cm x 0 cm
- place made
- United States: New York, New York City
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Mathematics
- Computers & Business Machines
- Subject
- Mathematics
- Record ID
- nmah_1940644
- Usage
- CC0
