The History Of UNIVAC

The History Of UNIVAC

UNIVAC stands for (Universal Automatic Computer), named by one of its inventors, John Mauchly.

It was a computer milestone designed by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert, the same inventors of the revolutionary ENIAC computer of the year 1946.

In June of 1951 the first commercially available computer named the UNIVAC I was officially delivered to the U.S. Government’s Census Bereau.

Prudential Insurance Company was then the first commercial customer to purchase one. In total 46 UNIVAC computer systems were built from 1951 to 1958 for both government and business use.

UNIVAC - Fun Facts

• In 1952 UNIVAC predicted the outcome of the presidential election during a televised news broadcast.

• In 1954 the first industrial payroll application was developed by General Electric. 

• In 1956 Westinghouse Electric Company installed one in one of its Pittsburgh plants.

• UNIVAC was approximately 25 feet long by 50 feet long.

• U-N-I-V-A-C contained 18,000 diodes, 300 relays, and 5,700 vacuum tubes.

• It operated using serial circuitry, had a 2.25 MHz bit rate, and had a storage capacity of 1,000 words.

• It utilized a Mercury delay line, magnetic tape, and typewriter output.

• The UNIVAC I was the first computer to come equipped with a magnetic tape unit and the first computer to use buffer memory.

• It’s reported processing speed was .525 milliseconds for arithmetic calculations, 3.9 for division, and 2.15 for multiplication.

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