UNIVAC - Models

Models

In the course of its history, UNIVAC produced a number of separate model ranges.

The original model range was the UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I), the first commercial computer made in the United States. The main memory consisted of tanks of liquid mercury implementing delay line memory, arranged in 1000 words of 12 alphanumeric characters each. The first machine was delivered on 31 March 1951. Successor machines included:

The UNIVAC II was an improvement to the UNIVAC I that UNIVAC first delivered in 1958. The improvements included magnetic (non-mercury) core memory of 2000 to 10000 words, UNISERVO II tape drives which could use either the old UNIVAC I metal tapes or the new PET film tapes, and some circuits that were transistorized (although it was still a vacuum tube computer). It was fully compatible with existing UNIVAC I programs for both code and data. The UNIVAC II also added some instructions to the UNIVAC I's instruction set.

Sperry Rand began shipment of UNIVAC III in 1962, and produced 96 UNIVAC III systems. Unlike the UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II, however, it was a binary machine as well as maintaining support for all UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II decimal and alphanumeric data formats for backward compatibility. This was the last of the original UNIVAC machines.

The UNIVAC Solid State was a 2-address, decimal computer, with memory on a rotating drum with 5000 signed 10 digit words, aimed at the general purpose business market. It came in two versions: the Solid State 80 (IBM-Hollerith 80 column cards) and the Solid State 90 (Remington-Rand 90 column cards). This computer used magnetic amplifiers, not transistors, because the transistors then available had highly variable characteristics and were not sufficiently reliable. The magnetic amplifiers were based on tiny magnetic cores with two wire windings. The magnetic amplifiers required powerful pulses of heavy current produced by a transmitter-type vacuum-tube, of a type still used in amateur radio final amplifiers. Thus the Solid State depended, at the heart of its operations, on a vacuum tube.

Early UNIVAC 1100 series models were vacuum tube computers.

The UNIVAC 1100/2200 series is a series of compatible 36-bit transistorized computer systems initially made by Sperry Rand. The series continues to be supported today by Unisys Corporation as the ClearPath Plus Dorado Series.

• Remington Rand 409 was a control panel programmed punched card calculator, designed in 1949.
• The UNIVAC 418 (aka 1219) was an 18-bit word core memory machine. Over the three different models, more than 392 systems were manufactured.
• The UNIVAC 490 was a 30-bit word core memory machine with 16K or 32K words; 4.8 microsecond cycle time.
• The UNIVAC 492 is similar to the UNIVAC 490, but with extended memory to 64K 30-bit words.
• The UNIVAC 494 was a 30-bit word machine and successor to the UNIVAC 490/492 with faster CPU and 131K (later 262K) core memory. Up to 24 I/O channels were available and the system was usually shipped with UNIVAC FH880 or UNIVAC FH432 or FH1782 magnetic drum storage. Basic operating system was OMEGA (successor to REX for the 490) although custom operating systems were also used (e.g. CONTORTS for airline reservations).
• The UNIVAC 1004 was a plug-board programmed punched card data processing system, introduced in 1962, by UNIVAC. Total memory was 961 characters (6 bits) of core memory. Peripherals were a card reader (400 cards/minute), a card punch (200 cards/minute) using proprietary 90-column, round-hole cards or IBM-compatible, 80-column cards, a drum printer (400 lines/minute) and a Uniservo tape drive. The 1004 was also supported as a remote card reader & printer via synchronous communication services. A U.S. Navy (Weapons Station, Concord) 1004 was dedicated to printing from tape as a means of offloading the task from their Solid State 80 mainframe, which produced the tapes. A plug-board program called Emulator was widely installed to convert 1004s to stored-program operation, reading in instructions from program decks of cards which determined the processing of the following data decks. Once installed, Emulator was rarely removed as it could run the machine as desired and, as almost every machine function was used, it was physically heavy from the sheer mass of installed jumpers filling nearly the entire board. Emulator was not a Univac product, rather it was built by each customer, a tedious task. Its heavy use of the 1004's program-branching reed relays, called selectors, caused increased failures, later solved by the use of electronic selectors in the follow-on 1005.
• The UNIVAC 1005, an enhanced version of the UNIVAC 1004, was introduced in February 1966. The main improvement over the 1004 was conversion from the plug-board program to an internal stored program. The machine saw extensive use by the US Army, including the first use of an electronic computer on the battlefield. Additional peripherals were also available including a paper tape reader and a three pocket stacker selectable card read/punch. The machine had a two-stage assembler (SAAL - Single Address Assembly Language) which was its primary assembler; it also had a three stage card based compiler for a programming language called SARGE. 1005s were used as some nodes on Autodin.
• The UNIVAC 1050 was an internally programmed computer with up to 32K of 6-bit character memory, which was introduced in 1963. It was a 1-address machine with 30-bit instructions, had a 4K operating system and was programmed in the PAL assembly language. The 1050 was used extensively by the U.S. Air Force supply system for inventory control.
• The UNIVAC 9000 series (9200, 9300, 9400, 9700) was introduced in the mid-1960s to compete with the low end of the IBM 360 series. The 9000 series implemented the IBM 360 instruction set. The 9200 and 9300 (which differed only in CPU speed) implemented the same restricted 360 subset as the Model 20, while the UNIVAC 9400 implemented the full 360 instruction set. The 9400 was roughly equivalent to the IBM 360/30. The 9000 series used plated wire memory, which functioned somewhat like core memory but used a non-destructive read. Since the 9000 series was intended as direct competitors to IBM, they used 80-column cards and EBCDIC character encoding.

• The UNIVAC 90/60 Series (90/60, 90/70, 90/80): Later, more advanced machines such as the Univac 90/60 provided systems which featured virtual memory and thus were similar, or equivalent, to later IBM System/370 mainframes. This didn't violate IBM copyrights. Sperry got the rights to "clone" the 360 as settlement of a lawsuit concerning IBM's infringement of Remington Rand's core memory patents.

• The UNIVAC 90/30 Series (90/30, 90/25, 90/40): Separately from the 90/60 series, Sperry Univac introduced the Univac 90/30 in about 1975 to provide an upgrade path for 9x00 users and to compete with IBM's System 3. It used a disk operating system and had either a 500 or 2000 lines per minute printer, a card reader, optionally a card punch, a console (Uniscope 100), attached disk drives that had removable disk packs, several 1600 or 6250 BpI tape drives, and possibly a communications controller. The standard disk drive was the 8416 which held a multi-layer platter removable disk pack that held approximately 40 million bytes. The 8418 drive was an enhanced version that supported both 40MB and "double-density" 80MB disk packs. There was also an 8430 drive. The machine had either 1K, 4K or 16K memory chips, and typical machines had between 128 to 512 KiB memory. It ran an OS called OS/3, and could run up to 7 jobs at one time, not counting various OS extensions such as the spooler and telecommunications access (ICAM). It was an upgrade path for users who had outgrown the IBM System/3. It ran Cobol-74, RPG2, Fortran, and Assembler.

Shortly after the 90/30 was introduced, Sperry Univac introduced the 90/25 which was the same basic hardware, however had an option for a smaller 80 column card reader and was a bit slower (it is said, that the machine executed 3 instructions and then paused to slow it down, as nearly every component was identical to the 90/30). Later a 90/40 model was added which improved upon various performance criteria such as clock rate and maximum main memory capacity.

The Sperry UNIVAC System 80 series: The entire 90/xx series was eventually replaced in 1981 by the System 80, a Sperry-badged, IBM/360-like mainframe actually developed and engineered by Mitsubishi in Japan.