page_title: LINC
section_title: Knobs
hierarchical_section_title: LINC / Knobs
caption_attribution_description: English: A partially restored LINC-8 running at the RCS/RI.
context_page_description: The LINC is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the "Linc", suggesting the project's origins at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, it was renamed LINC after the project moved from the Lincoln Laboratory. The LINC was designed by Wesley A. Clark and Charles Molnar.
  The LINC and other "MIT Group" machines were designed at MIT and eventually built by Digital Equipment Corporation and Spear Inc. of Waltham, Massachusetts. The LINC sold for more than $40,000 at the time. A typical configuration included an enclosed 6'X20" rack; four boxes holding two tape drives, display scope and input knobs, control console and data terminal interface; and a keyboard.
  The LINC interfaced well with laboratory experiments. Analog inputs and outputs were part of the basic design. It was designed in 1962 by Charles Molnar and Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts, for NIH researchers. The LINC's design was literally in the public domain, perhaps making it unique in the history of computers.
context_section_description: The LINC included a set of eight three-turn potentiometers (numbered 0-7) that could be each be read by a computer instruction. The dial box was a convenient user input device at a time before general adoption of the mouse. For example, one knob could control the scaling of a displayed graph, and another might be used as a cursor to display the actual data value at a point.
caption: The rotary knobs on the front panel could be used as a dial box. (Photo of LINC-8)
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