ALT.SF4M

  Great Moments in Computing History

   • m*******e@a****.***u.edu
     14/12/1996 00:00:000 UTC

     Great Moments in the History of Computing, #17

     In the late 1950s, cybernetics pioneers Alfred von Neumann and
     Oscar-Meyer

     Weiner created the basic design for the Electronic Fast Integrator,

     Differentiator, And Calculator, model 24, the last in a series of
     experimental

     computers designed for the Department of Defense. Based on radically new

     concepts in systems architecture, this computer pioneered advanced

     technologies such as instruction pipelining. Construction of the device
     was

     completed a few years later. Unfortunately, rapid advances in tube
     technology

     soon led to vastly different design techniques, making this innovative
     line of

     computers obsolete. As a result, these machines have been largely
     forgotten.

     But in its time, the EFIDAC/24 was by far the fastest computer in the
     world.

     --- Brian