The Johnniac

The Johnniac (1953):

The Johnniac computer, built by The Rand Corporation, was one of seventeen custom-built machines inspired by the Institute of Advanced Study (Princeton) architecture. This design specified a binary, bit-parallel machine optimized for "number crunching" and introduced the "stored program" concept--that is, the storing of both data and instructions in memory. Using 2300 vacuum tubes, the IAS machine was the result of work supervised by Dr. John von Neumann, to whom the offspring-computer named "Johnniac" paid homage (though von Neumann "disapproved"!) Other machines of the IAS-class besides the Johnniac included: the MANIAC (Los Alamos), the ILLIAC (University of Illinois), the SILIAC (Australia), and IBM's first electronic, general-purpose computer, the Model 701.

The lecture takes place in front of The Johnniac! This remarkable machine is part of Computer History Museum's permanent collection.