ILLIAC I
Encyclopedia
The ILLIAC I a pioneering computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 built in 1952 by the University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

, was the first computer built and owned entirely by a US educational institution, Manchester University UK having built Manchester Mark 1
Manchester Mark 1
The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester from the Small-Scale Experimental Machine or "Baby" . It was also called the Manchester Automatic Digital Machine, or MADM...

 in 1948.

ILLIAC I was based on the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS)
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 Von Neumann architecture
Von Neumann architecture
The term Von Neumann architecture, aka the Von Neumann model, derives from a computer architecture proposal by the mathematician and early computer scientist John von Neumann and others, dated June 30, 1945, entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC...

 as described by mathematician John von Neumann
John von Neumann
John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American mathematician and polymath who made major contributions to a vast number of fields, including set theory, functional analysis, quantum mechanics, ergodic theory, geometry, fluid dynamics, economics and game theory, computer science, numerical analysis,...

 in his influential First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
The First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC was an incomplete 101-page document written by John von Neumann and distributed on June 30, 1945 by Herman Goldstine, security officer on the classified ENIAC project...

. Unlike most computers of its era, the ILLIAC I and ORDVAC
ORDVAC
The ORDVAC or Ordnance Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, an early computer built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann, which came to be known as the von Neumann architecture...

 computers were twin copies of the same design, with software compatibility. The computer had 2,800 vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...

s, measured 10 ft (3 m) by 2 ft (0.6 m) by 8½ ft (2.6 m) (L×B×H), and weighed 5 tons (4.5 t). ILLIAC I was very powerful for its time; in 1956 it had more computing power than all of Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...

.

Because the lifetime of the tubes within ILLIAC was about a year, the machine was shut down every day for "preventive maintenance" when older vacuum tubes would be replaced in order to increase reliability. Visiting scholars from Japan assisted in the design of the ILLIAC series of computers, and later developed the MUSASINO-1
MUSASINO-1
The MUSASINO-1 was the second electronic computer built in Japan. Construction started in Musashino, Tokyo in 1952, and upon completion in July 1957, the computer was used until July 1962...

 computer in Japan. ILLIAC I was retired in 1962, when the ILLIAC II
ILLIAC II
The ILLIAC II was a revolutionary super-computer built by the University of Illinois that became operational in 1962.-Description:The concept, proposed in 1958, pioneered Emitter-coupled logic circuitry, pipelining, and transistor memory with a design goal of 100x speedup compared to ILLIAC...

 became operational.

Innovations

  • 1955, Lejaren Hiller
    Lejaren Hiller
    Lejaren Arthur Hiller was an American composer. In 1957 he collaborated on the first significant computer music composition, Illiac Suite, with Leonard Issacson. It was his fourth string quartet. In 1958 he founded the Experimental Music Studio at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign...

     and Leonard Isaacson, used ILLIAC I to compose the Illiac Suite
    Illiac Suite
    It is generally agreed upon that the Illiac Suite is the first piece of music composed by an electronic computer. The piece, programmed by the computer and performed from notation, in the form of a string quartet, was the result of a collaboration by Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson in 1956...

     which was one of the first pieces of music to be written with the aid of a computer.

  • 1957, Mathematician Donald B. Gillies
    Donald B. Gillies
    Donald Bruce Gillies was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, known for his work in game theory, computer design, and minicomputer programming environments.- Education :...

    , Physicist, James E. Snyder and Astronomers George C. McVittie, S. P. Wyatt, Ivan R. King and George W. Swenson of the University of Illinois
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

     used the ILLIAC I computer to calculate the orbit of the Sputnik I satellite within 2 days of its launch.

  • 1960, The first version of the PLATO computer-based education system was implemented on the ILLIAC I by a team led by Donald Bitzer
    Donald Bitzer
    Donald L. Bitzer is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He was the co-inventor of the plasma display, is largely regarded as the "father of PLATO", and has made a career of improving classroom productivity by using computer and telecommunications technologies.The creation of...

    . It serviced a single user. In early 1961, version 2 of PLATO serviced 2 simultaneous users.

External links

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