The 1960s was the decade in which the digital computer really took over the nation’s business, technical and scientific communities as an alternative to earlier tedious manual methods of accounting and calculation. The brochure for the PDS 1020, marketed as a general-purpose digital computer, remarks upon the ability of computers to eliminate this drudgery, allowing “engineering staff to concentrate on creative engineering problems.” Beside the usual keyboard and paper tape I/O facilities, the PDS1020 also had a calculator-style input station at which the user could enter calculations in the more traditional way and have the computer execute the calculation immediately. Original selling price was $21,500 or about $170,000 in today’s dollars.
