Secondary donor: Dick Clayton This item comprises 2 (two) pieces: A: CRT Unit B: Operator''s Console First produced in 1962, might well be considered the great grandfather of the pesonal computers. The LINC, designed as a tool for the scientific labratory, introduced the linc tape, the equivalent of the floppy disk. This feature, along with interactive program editing, allowed users to have truly personal files. Description: 12 bit word length, 125000 instructions per second, discrete transitor circuitry, 2048 primary word memory, price $43,600. 50 Produced (21 by DEC) Quote from designer: "In September 1963, the last of about twelve, freshly assembled LINCs was safely delivered ... The event marked the successful completion of Phase I of a remarkable and unprecedented program. The twelve LINCs assembled during the hot Cambridge summer of '63 had been put together by the owners themselves. Each of these pioneers would take full responsibility for trial operation of the LINC as a workstation in his own biomedical research laboratory. " รป Wesley Clark Len Shustek writes: LINC facts In the early 1960's the typical computer was an expensive huge monstrosity operated for the benefit of hundreds of people. One walked into it. IBM in particular built big machines, and you shared them with others by submitting jobs on card decks to be run by an operator later. The LINC was different. It was one of the earliest small computers, and can be thought of as the "great grandfather" of today's personal computers. It cost only $32,000 and was the size of a refrigerator instead of a room, which was a great advance. LINC came out of MIT and was designed by Wes Clark, Charlie Molnar, and others, who thought that computers should be tools for laboratory researchers, not just mathematical number crunchers ? LINC stood (eventually) for "Laboratory Instrument Computer". It didn't get it's input from punched cards, but from wires connected to laboratory experiments in progress. And that me
