Model V
The Model V was among the early electromechanical general purpose computers, designed by George Stibitz and built by Bell Telephone Laboratories and became operational in 1946.
Only two machines were built: first one was installed at National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the second at the US Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory.
Construction
Design was started in 1944. The tape-controlled machine had two processors that could operate independently, an early form of multiprocessing.The Model V weighed about.
Significance
- Inspired Richard Hamming to investigate the automatic error-correction, which led to invention of Hamming codes
- One of the early electromechanical general purpose computers
- First American machine and first George Stibitz design to use floating-point arithmetic
- Had an early form of multiprocessing
- Had a very primitive form of an operating system, albeit in hardware. A separate hardware control unit existed to direct the sequence of computer operations.
Model VI
Built and used internally by Bell Telephone Laboratories, operational in 1949.Simplified version of the Model V but with several improvements, including one of the earliest use of the microcode.