The "lifetime" of technology has been reduced - smartphones can be changed at least every year. But there is still equipment that has been working for decades and is likely to work for many years to come. One of these systems is Japanese FACOM 128B, commissioned in 1958.
A photo - β PD / In the photo: a follower of FACOM 128B - FACOM 201A
How FACOM appeared
In the early 1950s, computers were built on vacuum tubes - they were used in the first commercial computer . These elements were difficult to maintain and often failed. Therefore, some companies have chosen a different path and started developing based on relays and switches. Among them was the Japanese corporation Fujitsu. She planned to compete with the American "Β».
In 1954, Toshio Ikeda, head of Fujitsu's computer technology department, initiated the development of a new computing system. In it, the role of logical elements switching relays used in telephone exchanges. The company's engineers used 4500 of these relays and assembled a computer from them. . Two years later, an improved version of the system saw the light - , and in 1959 - FACOM 128B.
Computer Features
Fujitsu's performance was significantly lower than vacuum tube machines. For example, IBM 701 for the addition operation is about 60 milliseconds. FACOM 128B similar task in 100-200 milliseconds. It took him up to 350 milliseconds to multiply two numbers, and much more for complex logarithmic operations.
What the FACOM 128B lacked in performance it made up for in reliability and ease of maintenance. All arithmetic operations were performed in the decimal number system, and the numbers were encoded in binary-quinary code (). Seven bits were allocated to denote a number in memory - 0 5 ΠΈ +0 1 2 3 4 XNUMX, which allowed any digit from zero to nine to be encoded by "lighting up" two bits in sequence.
Such an approach search for stuck relays. If the number of active bits was not equal to two, then it became obvious that a failure had occurred. Finding the faulty component after that was also easy.
The FACOM 128B computer was used until the 1970s. With its help, special lenses were designed for cameras and - the first passenger airliner built by the Japanese after the end of World War II.
How is FACOM doing today?
FACOM 128B is no longer used for any serious calculations and calculations. The machine has become a fully functional museum exhibit installed in the "hall of fame" of the Fujitsu Numazu Plant in Numazu City.
The computer is monitored by a single engineer - Tadao Hamada (Tadao Hamada). According to him , he will "remain in office" for the rest of his life, as he wants to preserve Japan's technological legacy for posterity. He notes that repairing the system does not require significant effort. The FACOM 128B is so reliable that only one relay needs to be replaced per year despite daily demo runs.
Most likely, the computer will work for many more years, even after the departure of Tadao Hamada. Confidence is inspired by the fact that last year the National Museum of Nature and Science of Tokyo FACOM 128B to the list of technologies of great historical importance.
Other "long-livers"
Another computer that continues to work from the 50s of the last century in the American company Sparkler Filters (supplies filtration devices). This car - , which is an electromechanical calculator that reads information from 80-column punched cards. It is believed to be the last fully functioning IBM 402 on the planet.
Unlike the FACOM 128B, which is a showpiece, the machine is used for bookkeeping and financial reporting. The corresponding programs for the computer are stored in the form of patch panels, on which technological sockets are connected by wires that determine the operation algorithm.
A photo - β CC BY SA
So far, the company does not plan to switch to modern computing systems and abandon the unique computer. But there is a possibility that in the future the IBM 402 ends up in the Computer History Museum. Its representatives in the past , but then the negotiations did not lead to anything.
Another example of a long-lived computer is , which since 1987 at Hecla Mining, which mines silver and other precious metals. The computer is installed at a station in Alaska, where it evaluates the parameters of the ore and prints labels for samples. By the way, the same old printer is responsible for the latter. Interestingly, seven years ago, one of the Hecla Mining engineers noted in a reddit feature post that βhe doesnβt need to play the , since it already works on a "post-apocalyptic" PC. There is some truth in this - definitely adds to the ambience.
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Source: habr.com