Talk:UNIVAC I

message: My rationale for placing the History sec above the Tech description sec was that I think the majority of readers will be primarily interested in the UNIVAC's practical impact and installation history (which institutions and companies bought those machines, what did they use them for). Those of us who are equally/more interested in the tech stuff are probably going to read the History sec anyway, and then dive into the juicy details. :-) --Wernher 05:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Section sequence

message: * The Tektronix oscilloscope wasn't part of the computer and wasn't permanently attached to it.  It was a standalone maintenance tool.  
* The Unityper was entirely mechanical. It wrote magnetic tapes by pushing permanent magnets against the tape and then advancing the tape.
* The CPU had full redundancy and checking.
* Case Institute of Technology had their UNIVAC I running until 1965.
* The UNISERVO tape drives had motors powered by McIntosh audio amplifiers.
--John Nagle (talk) 04:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misc UNIVAC 1 info 

message: The article lead says: The fifth machine (built for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission) was used by CBS to predict the result of the 1952 presidential election.  However, according to this wired.com article, "The Univac in Philadelphia was connected to a teletype machine at the CBS studios in New York City. As the first precincts reported on election night, technicians used Unityper machines to encode the data onto paper tape to feed into Univac.", and the article indicates that the fifth machine was delivered in 1953 to the	Atomic Energy Commission in Livermore, CA.  Was Eckert–Mauchly testing the fifth machine in Philadelphia in Nov. 1952, prior to its 1953 delivery to California?  Clarification in the article would be helpful.  (I think the wired article has an error. Unityper machines encoded data onto magnetic tape, not paper tape) --Wbm1058 (talk) 23:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Machine used to predict 1952 election 

message: While the description here states that if a non-digit was encountered during an arithmetic operation, the machine would pass it to the output unchanged. However according to the Univac Programming Manual, 1st Revision 1953, it states that during add/subtract, if a non-numeral is encountered as data, the machine will stop and light a neon on the SC to indicate the type of fault.
Other tidbits- while reading from tape can be performed both forward and reverse, writing can only take place during forward motion. And the programmer must know which direction he wishes to read from tape as the instructions are specific. The UNIVAC could write at 20 char/inch for uniprinter intended output. Or at 100 char/inch for use by the machine proper at a later time. (The programmer must specify via instruction). Output was buffered in 60 word blocks.  This information from my ’53 Programming Manual.
The wiki page states recording density of 128 bits/inch but according to the 1954 Manual of Operations (Remington Rand EL-210 Copyright 1954), density is actually 128 DIGITS per inch. A digit is 4 bits ‘numeric’, 2 bits ‘zone’ and 1 bit ‘parity’. 
A couple of other things I don’t see mentioned but find impressive, especially when compared against later machines: It could read in data from any one of 10 Uniservos, write data to 2 different Uniservos, and continue to perform computations all simultaneously. 
With regards to error checking- the 4 primary arithmetic registers were all redundant and results were continually compared. Odd parity checks were also used to verify input and the memory tanks were scanned for parity as the serial words recirculated. If a fault was encountered, a neon specific to that "area" would light.
In regards to the remark about the Unityper being entirely mechanical, I’m curious how it handled clearing of erroneous bits from tape. I know the operator could “backspace” and write over a mis-typed character. Not sure how it was done.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.65.245 (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional Information from Original Texts 

message: There is no citation in the first footnote for the assertion that the BINAC was actually a "commercial" computer.
As far as I can tell, the single BINAC sold never did much of anything for the customer, Northrop, so while its sale could be considered a commercial transaction, I question whether the product delivered was actually a functional computer at all. In contrast, clearly the Univac I was a functional computer line.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.105.117 (talk) 17:04, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are you sure that the BINAC was really a commercial computer? 

message: The section on memory has a lot of technical gobbledygook, but it doesn't translate that into a statement such as, "It had 1 megabyte of memory." Therefore, it is impossible to compare the UNIVAC memory to the memory of modern computers.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.120.87 (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not description of the memory in modern terms? 

message: The end credits of Electric Dreams close with ‘Dedicated to the memory of the UNIVAC I’ HuwG 180.150.37.105 (talk) 11:59, 5 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  In popular culture 

message: I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CS, WP:NOR, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 16:45, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Uncited material in need of citations