Innovation
- The ILLIAC II was one of the first transistorized computers. Like the IBM Stretch computer, ILLIAC II was designed using "future transistors" that had not yet been invented.
- The ILLIAC II project was proposed before, and competed with IBM's Stretch project, and several ILLIAC designers felt that Stretch borrowed many of its ideas from ILLIAC II, whose design and documentation were published openly as University of Illinois Tech Reports.
- The ILLIAC II had a division unit designed by faculty member James E. Robertson, a co-inventor of the SRT Division algorithm.
- The ILLIAC II was one of the first pipelined computers, along with IBM's Stretch Computer. The pipelined control was designed by faculty member Donald B. Gillies. The pipeline stages were named Advanced Control, Delayed Control, and Interplay.
- The ILLIAC II was the first computer to incorporate Speed-Independent Circuitry, invented by faculty member David E. Muller. Speed-Independent Circuitry is a class of asynchronous digital logic based on the Muller C-element. This digital logic, being asynchronous, runs at full speed of transistor propagation and requires no clocks.
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Famous quotes containing the word innovation:
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)