Artifact Details

Description

This is a color image of three men working in front of the ILLIAC IV supercomputer. The man on the left is standing and typing into a console attached to the ILLIAC Control Unit. The other two men are kneeling and testing one of the boards of the ILLIAC on a test machine. Engineer Jay Patton is at the oscillosope.

ILLIAC IV had sixty-four processors, each with its own memory, each operating simultaneously on separate parts of a single problem. Designed at the University of Illinois and built by Burroughs, the one-of-a-kind ILLIAC IV took six years to complete at a cost of $40 million. It was installed at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calfornia. It was the fastest machine then in use and ahead of its time but was often plagued by technical problems and could be difficult to program.

Publisher

Illinois, University of (Urbana-Champaign)

Identifying Numbers

Other number

1450

Dimensions

8 x 10 in.

Format

Photographic print

Category

Identification photograph; Publicity photograph

Subject

Illiac IV (Computer); Burroughs Corporation; Computers--History; Computer industry--History

Credit

Courtesy of Gwen Bell

Lot Number

X7413.2015