From Airplane Parts to Computers: The Bendix G-15
Bendix G-15 #100
The G-15 was a runaway success for Bendix. The subsequent G-20 and G-21 computers were not, and Bendix sold its computer division to Control Data in 1963.
From Airplane Parts to Computers: The Bendix G-15
After some early work on specialized computers, aircraft parts maker Bendix Aviation entered the computer business, acquiring the design for a small computer developed by pioneer Harry Huskey.
The G-15 was modestly priced (for 1956) at $50,000, and weighed “only” 850 pounds. It was a success. More than 300 were built.
Bendix G-15
Harry Huskey borrowed ideas from Alan Turing in sketching plans for the successful G-15, although Bendix engineers prepared the detailed vacuum-tube design. Main memory was a rotating magnetic drum. Important uses included civil engineering for highway design.
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Bendix G-15 advertisement
The Bendix G-15, like the competing LGP-30, was inexpensive and convenient for engineering applications. But the G-15 was easier to expand with paper tape, magnetic tape, card readers and punches, plotters for graphical output — even a digital differential analyzer.
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