C:\Games\DarkAges\Main_Computers
TRADIC
Large capacity computer with transistors
After the introduction of transistors, it was a logical step to replace the heavy vacuum tubes in computers with them. The advantages of transistors are much lower power consumption, hardly any heat generation and much greater reliability.
There were two computers built in the 1950s based on transistors that ushered in a new era of computers because of their fail-safety as well as their greater speed compared to the tubes. One was the TRADIC (Transistorized Airbone Digital Computer), developed for the US Air Force and completed in 1954. The TRADIC had 10,358 germanium diodes and 684 transistors.
The other computer was the TX-0 (Transistorized Experimental Computer Zero), developed at MIT Lincoln Laboraty in 1955 and deployed in 1956. The TX-0 was the successor to the legendary Whirlwind, which still operated without transistors. The TX-0 became better known because it was transferred to MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics in 1958, where the foundations for artificial intelligence and hacker culture were laid in the 1960s.
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Table of contents
| YR | NAME | INVENTOR |
|---|---|---|
| — | Introduction |  |
| 1938 | Z1 – Z4 |  |
| 1941 | Atanasoff Berry Computer |  |
| 1943 | Harvard Mark I |  |
| 1943 | Colossus |  |
| 1945 | Whirlwind |  |
| 1946 | ENIAC |  |
| 1950 | IBM 650 |  |
| 1951 | UNIVAC |  |
| 1954 | TRADIC | |
| 1960 | PDP-1 |  |