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UNIVAC 1004

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UNIVAC
Company typeBrand / Product line
IndustryComputer hardware
PredecessorEckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation
Founded1946
FounderJ. Presper Eckert, John Mauchly
FateBrand became part of Remington Rand and successor entities; last computer manufactured in 1986
Headquarters
Philadelphia
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
William Norris (Vice-President & General Manager, 1955–1957), Thornton C. Fry, Jay W. Schnackel, Dr. Louis T. Rader, J. Frank Forster, Robert E. McDonald, Gerald G. Probst, Richard l. Gehring, Joseph J. Kroger
ProductsElectronic digital stored-program computers (UNIVAC I, II, III, 418 series, 490 series, 1100/2200 series, 9000 series, etc.)
ParentEckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation; later Remington Rand; later Sperry Rand; now Unisys

UNIVAC (an acronym for Universal Automatic Computer) refers to a series of electronic digital stored-program computers initially developed by the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Subsequently, the brand became part of Remington Rand and its successor entities.

The BINAC, created by Eckert and Mauchly, holds the distinction of being the first commercially available general-purpose computer, although it did not achieve commercial success. The final computer bearing the UNIVAC name was manufactured in 1986.

History and structure

Between 1943 and 1946, J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly designed the ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania. Following a patent disagreement, they established the Electronic Control Company, which was later renamed Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC), based in Philadelphia. EMCC produced the BINAC for Northrop Corporation, which saw limited deployment, and then commenced work on the UNIVAC project in April 1946, primarily financed by the Bureau of the Census.

After the death of EMCC’s chairman and primary financial backer, Henry L. Straus, in 1949, Remington Rand acquired EMCC in 1950. At Remington Rand, Eckert and Mauchly reported to Leslie Groves, a retired Army general known for overseeing the Manhattan Project.

The most renowned model from UNIVAC was the UNIVAC I mainframe introduced in 1951. It gained fame for correctly forecasting the outcome of the 1952 U.S. presidential election, predicting Eisenhower’s decisive victory over Stevenson—contrasting with Gallup polls that suggested a close race. Despite initial doubts from CBS, this forecast proved to be accurate.

In 1951, the United States Army ordered a UNIVAC system to support intricate mobilization planning that involved coordination across various industries and governmental agencies.

Production took place at Remington Rand’s Eckert-Mauchly Division facility in Philadelphia. Additionally, Remington Rand maintained an engineering research center in Norwalk, Connecticut, and acquired Engineering Research Associates (ERA) located in St. Paul, Minnesota. Around 1953-54, Remington Rand consolidated its Norwalk tabulating division, ERA’s scientific computing unit, and UNIVAC’s business computing division under a single UNIVAC umbrella—a move that sparked internal conflicts.

In 1955, Remington Rand merged with Sperry Corporation, creating Sperry Rand. General Douglas MacArthur, who was chairman of Remington Rand at the time, continued as chairman of Sperry Rand. Harry Franklin Vickers retained his roles as president and CEO. Under Sperry Rand management, the UNIVAC division was renamed Remington Rand Univac. William Norris served as Vice-President and General Manager until his departure in 1957 amid ongoing organizational difficulties that extended into the early 1960s.

# Name Years in office Title
1 William Norris 1955-1957 Vice-President & General Manager UNIVAC Division
2 Thornton C. Fry 1957-1959 Vice-President & General Manager UNIVAC Division
3 Jay W. Schnackel 1959-1962 Vice-President & General Manager UNIVAC Division
4 Dr. Louis T. Rader 1962-1964 President of the UNIVAC Division
5 J. Frank Forster 1964-1966 President of the UNIVAC Division
6 Robert E. McDonald 1966-1971 President of the UNIVAC Division
7 Gerald G. Probst 1971–1978 President of the UNIVAC Division
8 Richard l. Gehring 1978-1981 President of the UNIVAC Division
9 Joseph J. Kroger 1981-1985 President of the UNIVAC / Sperry Computer Systems Division.

During the decade of the 1960s, UNIVAC was counted among eight leading American computing firms collectively referred to as "IBM and the seven dwarfs," which included Burroughs, NCR, Control Data Corporation (CDC), GE, RCA, and Honeywell—IBM being by far dominant. In the following decade, after GE sold its computer operations to Honeywell and RCA was absorbed into Univac, this group became known as "BUNCH" (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC, Honeywell).

In 1977 Sperry Rand purchased Varian Data Machines to enter the minicomputer sector; Varian was integrated as Sperry UNIVAC Minicomputer Operation within Sperry UNIVAC but failed to capture significant market presence.

To streamline corporate identity, Sperry Rand rebranded several divisions including Sperry Univac and Sperry New Holland. By 1978 it divested non-computer-related businesses to concentrate on computing technologies and reverted to Sperry Corporation as its corporate name. By 1981 Sperry Univac had become its largest division with revenues reaching $2.7 billion. Later that year distinct Sperry UNIVAC branding was discontinued; it was renamed Sperry Computer Systems Division.

In 1986 Sperry merged with Burroughs Corporation, forming what is now known as Unisys. Following this merger, Unisys shifted focus away from hardware manufacturing towards IT services and outsourcing solutions, competing with companies such as IBM and Electronic Data Systems (EDS).

As of , Unisys continues to develop enterprise-grade servers under its ClearPath product line.

Models

UNIVAC's lineup encompassed multiple distinct series of models. The initial vacuum tube-based computers were derived from the ERA 1101 and rebranded as UNIVAC 110x; these early machines bore no relation to the later 1100/2200 series despite the similarity in their model numbers. Notably, the 1103A was the first computer to incorporate interrupt capabilities.

The original UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I), recognized as the second commercially available computer in the United States, utilized mercury delay-line memory with a capacity of 1,000 words, each containing 12 alphanumeric characters. The inaugural unit was delivered in March 1951.

The Remington Rand 409, a plugboard-controlled punched card calculator introduced in 1949, was marketed later as the UNIVAC 60 in 1952 and the UNIVAC 120 in 1953.

Launched in 1956, the UNIVAC File Computer employed large magnetic drums capable of storing up to 180,000 alphanumeric characters. It supported applications such as airline reservation systems for Eastern Air Lines and competed against IBM models like the IBM 650 and IBM 305 RAMAC, with approximately 130 units produced.

The UNIVAC II, arriving in 1958, enhanced its predecessor by incorporating magnetic core memory ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 words and introduced UNISERVO II tape drives compatible with both metal and PET film tapes. It also included some transistorized circuits while retaining vacuum tube technology. This model maintained complete backward compatibility and expanded its instruction set.

Designed for business use, the UNIVAC Solid State featured a decimal architecture with rotating drum memory holding 5,000 signed 10-digit words. Due to early transistor unreliability, it utilized magnetic logic gates instead of transistors, reducing vacuum tube dependency and increasing system reliability.

In 1962, Sperry Rand delivered the binary-compatible UNIVAC III, which supported prior decimal and alphanumeric data formats; production was limited to only 96 units.

The UNIVAC 418 series, equipped with an 18-bit core memory system, was introduced in 1962 and saw over 392 units manufactured across three different models.

The military-grade UNIVAC 490 (including the UNIVAC 1232 variant) and commercial versions incorporated core memory with a word length of 30 bits and a cycle time of 4.8 microseconds.

Building on the 490 design, the UNIVAC 492 expanded memory capacity to accommodate up to 64K words.

The subsequent UNIVAC 494 offered faster performance with up to 262K of core memory, multiple input/output channels, and options for magnetic drum storage. It operated either on the OMEGA operating system or specialized software such as CONTORTS designed for airline reservation systems.

Introduced in 1963, the UNIVAC 1050 was a one-address architecture machine capable of supporting up to 32K six-bit character memory units. It found extensive application within the U.S. Air Force for inventory management systems.

The UNIVAC 1004 (1962) functioned as a plugboard-programmed punched-card data processor featuring core memory holding 961 characters. This system supported both proprietary and IBM-compatible punched card formats and included peripherals like card readers, punches, printers, and tape drives. Additionally, it could serve as a remote card reader/printer via synchronous communications. An aftermarket "Emulator" board allowed program execution directly from cards but increased mechanical failures due to reliance on reed relays.

Released in February 1966, the enhanced UNIVAC 1005 experienced widespread deployment by the U.S. Army, including use in battlefield environments. It offered supplementary peripherals such as paper tape readers and multi-pocket card stackers. Programming support consisted of a two-stage assembler (SAAL) and a three-stage compiler for the SARGE language. While military and commercial versions shared hardware platforms, their instruction sets differed; commercial editions featured a three-pass assembler alongside a program generator.

The transistorized UNIVAC 1100/2200 series commenced with the model 1107 equipped with Thin-Film Memory. Despite delayed deliveries impacting initial sales, its successor—the model 1108—secured competitive standing against IBM System/360 mainframes. This series continues to be supported today by Unisys under the ClearPath Forward Dorado name.

During the mid-1960s, the UNIVAC 9000 series—including models such as the 9200, 9300, 9400, and later high-end model 9700—targeted IBM System/360's entry-level market segment. These systems implemented subsets of IBM's architecture under licensing agreements stemming from patent settlements. They utilized plated-wire memory—a non-destructive read technology similar to core memory—and employed EBCDIC encoding alongside IBM-compatible peripherals. Memory configurations began at as low as 8K bytes; optional disk subsystems included Uniservo VI tape drives plus IBM-standard disk drives.

The UNIVAC Series 90 encompassed:

  • High-end models (90/60, 90/70, 90/80): These were successors to high-end Series 9000 machines featuring virtual memory capabilities comparable to those found in IBM System/370 mainframes.
  • Low-end models (90/25, 90/30, 90/40): Introduced circa 1975 to upgrade Series 9000 users and challenge IBM System/3 offerings. These ran OS/3 supporting multitasking along with programming languages including COBOL-74, RPG2, Fortran, and assembler. Hardware configurations incorporated removable disk packs (standard capacity of approximately 29 MB), various Uniservo tape drives, high-speed printers, card readers/punches, and communication controllers initially supporting up to sixteen terminals.

Following the release of low-end Series 90 models, Sperry Univac rolled out variants such as the slower Model 90/25 and an enhanced Model 90/40 featuring accelerated clock speeds (500 ns cycle time), instruction prefetching capabilities, and expanded memory capacity reaching up to one megabyte.

  • Sperry UNIVAC System 80 series: Beginning in 1981, this range replaced Series 90 machines with more powerful systems developed by Mitsubishi in Japan but marketed under Sperry Univac branding. Models ranged from entry-level System 80/4 through high-performance System 80/20 throughout the mid-1980s. The final release under Unisys management was the System 80/7E in 1990.

Operating systems

The 1107 marked the introduction of the first 36-bit, word-oriented computer featuring an architecture closely resembling the later "1100 Series." It supported the batch-processing second-generation operating systems EXEC I and EXEC II, which were common in the early to mid-1960s. The 1108 model operated either EXEC II or EXEC 8, the latter providing capabilities for concurrent real-time tasks, time-sharing, and background batch jobs. The Transaction Interface Package (TIP) facilitated the development of transaction-processing software in COBOL, a notable advantage over competitors that required assembly language programming. EXEC 8 was subsequently renamed OS 1100 and OS 2200, with contemporary versions maintaining compatibility with earlier releases. Additionally, specialized operating systems such as RTOS were deployed on the 1108 to maximize hardware efficiency.

The economical System 80 line of compact mainframes utilized OS/3, an operating system initially created for the Univac 90/30 and its follow-up models.

The UNIVAC Series 90 originally ran Univac’s OS/9 before transitioning to RCA’s Virtual Memory Operating System (VMOS). RCA first introduced this as Time Sharing Operating System (TSOS) for its Spectra 70 virtual memory platforms, later renaming it VMOS prior to Sperry's acquisition of RCA CSD. Upon adapting VMOS for the 90/60, Univac rebranded it as VS/9.

Trademark

The UNIVAC name has been officially registered by:

See also

Further reading

External links

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